Technology thrust of new era electronics

A salient factor in forecasting the future of technology is focussed on the alignment of current driving forces with anticipated market pulls. In electronics, the dynamic activity of the past decade has been centered on silicon integrated circuit and computer development. Silicon IC technology basically is a means of manufacturing complex electronic assemblies at low cost and high reliability. The expanding efforts to produce an ever increasing number of components on a chip has been motivated by the cost reduction of electronic functions; the revolutionary aspect of this manufacutring technology has been the joint achievement of lower cost and higher reliability per function with each increase of lithographic resolution . . . As chip sophistication has increased, doubling every year since the early sixties and still proceeding at an exponential rate, a complexity threshold was crossed recently making it possible to manufacture Powerful computers at consumer-level prices. Hence, the crux of Predicting the electronic future hinges on the question of how computers will be used in the consumer, industrial and government markets in the era of inexpensive computational power . . . A major market concern now and in the near future is energy conservation and generation. Despite the public apathy, an energy crisis of critical Proportions looms on the horizon . . . Technology across a broader front must keep up with the driving forces of silicon IC manufacturing and computers . . . If the public at large is to accept the technological vision of the future, technological complexity must be made transparent at the human-machine interface. We must design system architectures which can absorb the rapidly-advancing changes without rapid obsolescence of previous investments. Electronic systems must be made fail-safe, maintainable and reliable. And, the interface must be simple. The key to public acceptance of the new world of electronics will be transparency -- not programmability . . . A broad appraisal of these vital issues will be presented.