Disappearing electronics and the return of the physical world

Abstract

As the semiconductor industry matures a paradigm shift occurs, away from the technology-push to a more application-driven exploitation. In this paper, applications are discussed that describe achievements along the road towards 'Disappearing Electronics'. Appliances and devices disappear into the environment of the individual; instead, services come into focus [I]. System solutions are key to this development. They lead to a significant improvement of the human-machine interface. Along this line, we present important technologies and key system components ranging from low-cost electronic technologies and systems, to ubiquitous sensor networks and electronics in smart textiles. In summary, this contribution relates the semiconductor technology, circuit and systems roadmaps to a future world in which electronics meets human needs in a pervasive, intuitive and beneficial way.

Fault Tolerance Issues in Non-Traditional Grids Implemented with Intelligent Agents

“…Portability, scalability and configurability. Related to power, cost and size, the main components of this network, namely sensors, actuators, controllers and DSPs are expected to become part of the "disappearing electronics", as it can be remarked from the latest achievements in this regard [11,12,13]. More than this, a very interesting idea is presented in [12], namely a proposal of energy harvesting seen from a system approach.…”

Redundancy at Link Level for Non-Traditional Grids Implemented with Intelligent Agents

“…power, cost and size [11,12,13,14,15,15,17,18] 2. security and privacy [19,20] 3. portability, scalability and configurability 4. reliability…”