Due to the pandemic in early 2020, the French government, like many others, decided to temporarily close the universities and asked the faculties to entirely focus on online education or e-learning. In a world where digital contents exponentially increase, this pandemic has been an opportunity to develop distance e-learning. Many politicians found a unique opportunity to decrease or even eliminate face-toface teaching activities. In engineering, this experience has shown clear limits and weaknesses. This paper highlights several problems that raised in microelectronic education and good reasons to move back to face-to-face learning especially for the acquisition of know-how. Indeed, know-how is mandatory for engineers, masters and PhDs in science and technology and this will never be replaced by a virtual experience. Real practice is the necessary price to pay for meeting the technological challenges of the upcoming decade.
This presentation is part of a context of galloping evolution of digitalization of all societal areas. These concern the administrative and financial management of economic activities, the management of the production of all kinds of objects and systems in an industry 4.0 vision, or the control of the functioning of communication, transport, health, energy or security equipment, mainly. This invasion of digital systems and communication may appear as a progress in many societal applications, but this unprecedented development creates new limitations that must be quickly overcome. If from the users' point of view, the implemented technologies appear more and more simple thanks to their software, ergonomic and user-friendly aspects, the physical support of digital objects constitutes the foundation of all these sophisticated tools. It can be noted that the great majority of user-friendly devices in direct link with the users employ flat panel displays and many other microsystems. Any evolution or improvement of these “Physical Cyber Systems” tools is based on the innovation of microelectronic circuits and systems whether they are integrated, large area or hybrid. Limitations appear in different forms, whether they are of a scientific, technical and technological origin, or also of a human origin, particularly with regard to the nature and the pool of skills, know-how, and innovation capabilities. This talk highlights the future challenges related to the exponential development of connected objects, sensors, the Internet of Things and the exploitation of transmitted and stored data. Indeed, globally, the total number of sensors and actuators grows by a factor of 2 in less than 2 years, the number of connected objects by a factor of 2 every 4 years, and the number of bytes transferred annually by a factor of 2 every 2 years, having reached the Zettabytes in 2018 and expected to reach the Yottabytes in 2030 (1024). Knowing that in a complete chain of data transfer about 50% of the equivalent consumption is spent by data centers, 30% by transmissions at all levels and 20% by industrial, professional or individual users, the effective power consumption is also growing exponentially, in practice by a factor of 2 every 4 years, despite the current permanent improvement of microelectronic technologies. In 2030, the world electricity consumption due to digital technologies should reach the world electricity consumption of 2018, i.e. about 27,000 TWh without any major intervention on the hardware level! It is necessary to review the entire chain of integrated functions that are physically realized on the basis of microelectronic components, circuits and systems. It is therefore the field of microelectronics that will have to bring innovation to face the challenges. At the level of microelectronics, the fields of intervention will therefore be multiple. The first area concerns the elementary components, which must be even more integrated but which must above all consume less. For example, major efforts are currently being made on memories that could consume up to 1000 times less than silicon-based memories thanks to the use of thin metal and insulator films. The stacking of integrated components using thin-film processes also provides solutions for integration and low consumption. The second area aims at a more intensive use of hybrid technologies in sensors and actuators involving thin films and multidisciplinary approaches. The third area is related to the reduction of energy consumption by modifying circuit architectures, by controlling the switch-off of inactive functions (a ratio of 1000 is expected), by using new materials such as organics for displays, or by involving large-gap semiconductors for high-power devices allowing to significantly reduce their leakage currents and their on-resistances. The fourth area is more complex and concerns the reduction of the use of rare elements in technologies that very often involve very high consumption in connection with their extraction, purification and transport. Their use in very thin layers such as those transferred onto insulating substrates in SOI technologies could be a solution. The last area concerns the human factor. The level of knowledge and know-how must be increasingly high with more and more players. Currently, many companies worldwide complain about the lack of candidates for job offers and point out the jobs in shortage. The challenge in this case is transferred to the international scientific and educational community. After presenting the different challenges in this context, this talk highlights the different approaches to meet the challenges, emphasizing the potential interest of thin film technologies. It concludes with the human challenge, which is becoming a key point for the success of the digital extension at the global level.
This paper highlights the future challenges related to the exponential development of connected objects and the Internet of Things. These challenges concern the integration of components, circuits and systems, the density of elementary components, but also the heterogeneous assembly, the data flow in communications and the energy consumption of the whole connected system. Indeed, current technologies and the amount of data transmitted currently lead to an exponential growth in energy consumption at the global level, a growth that will no longer be realistic and acceptable from 2030 onwards. To counteract this, the entire chain of integrated functions that are physically realized by microelectronic components, circuits and systems needs to be revisited. The main challenges will therefore focus on reducing the consumption of electronic functions including sensors and actuators, signal conversion and processing devices, energy collection and storage devices, display panels and short- and long-distance communications systems, and power electronics as well. Among these points, it should be noted that the number of sensors is increasing significantly, with predictions indicating that the number of sensors in the world is expected to reach 10 trillion by 2030, which corresponds to about a thousand sensors per inhabitant. Moreover, a strategy will have to be adapted not to increase the flow of data transmitted over long distances to data centers and cloud storage (or equivalent), but rather to prefer the use of short-range communications, which are much less energy-intensive. This evolution involves new technological approaches including very highly integrated components and circuits (ULSI or Ultra Large Scale Integration) but also thin film technologies based on inorganic and organic materials. These technologies are becoming a priority for the development of integrated sensors, energy production and storage systems and for the realization of transducers such as electrical generation of optical signals or contact-controlled flat panel displays. Three-dimensional heterogeneous structures combining the stacking of highly integrated devices with the superposition of thin film devices are also promising for data storage, which is becoming one of the major elements of databases and data centers. Depending on the desired properties, the solutions are more based on the modification of the materials constituting the basic electronic components in order to minimize the currents in the off-state but also the on-state, on the architectures of the circuits which must limit the consumption at stand-by, on the stacking of the layers constituting the devices and finally on the heterogeneous assembly involving several technologies. This will also require adapting the skills and know-how of technicians, engineers, doctors and researchers in order to overcome the technological challenges. This paper will thus successively focus on a general presentation of the challenges related to the development of connected objects and the Internet of Things, which involve all the main functions of electronics, which have consequences on all societal domains since the vast majority of applications in rapid development use electronic components and systems. Particular attention will be paid to the energy consumption of components and circuits that induce an exponential consumption of connected objects and the Internet. The next part will focus on the different approaches envisaged and more particularly on thin-film devices. In order to complete the picture, the last part will focus on the human needs in skills and know-how by giving as an example the strategy of the French microelectronics training network carried out over the last ten years. The final objective is to take up the technological and human challenges within the framework of the French electronics sector, set up in 2019 by the French government, which aims at making a significant contribution at the international level in the development of the digital society involving the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and industry 4.0.
This paper is part of a context of galloping evolution of digitalization of all societal areas. This invasion of digital systems and communication that may appear as a progress in many societal applications, as well create new limitations that must be quickly overcome. These limitations may have scientific, technical and technological origin, but also of a human origin, particularly with regard to the nature and the pool of skills, know-how, and innovation capabilities. This paper highlights the future challenges related to the exponential development of connected objects, and Internet of Things that leads to an effective power consumption growing exponentially as well. The different approaches to meet the challenges emphasize the role of microelectronics devices and systems and the potential interest of thin film technologies. It concludes with the human challenge, which is becoming a key point for the success of the digital extension at the global level.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.