Cassis calculates: 4 key trends for 2017

Article By : Marco Cassis

STMicroelectronics' Asia-Pac EVP Marco Cassis sees growth in the electronics industry driven by an increasing pervasion of intelligence and connectivity.

Following a good 2016, the electronics market is forecast to continue its positive momentum in 2017, and that is good for the semiconductor market. The increasing pervasion of intelligence and connectivity across a broad range of applications and devices, along with the need for more efficient power and resource consumption, is at the heart of this trend.

Car digitalisation & EVs

In 2017, expect car digitalisation and electrification to accelerate. This is being driven by the strong demand among consumers, manufacturers, and governments for three important advances. All want to make driving greener, with a strong focus on engine management, fuel efficiency, and electrification. They want to make driving safer, relying on improvements in assisted driving and security. And they want cars to be more connected, with an emphasis on infotainment and telematics.
 

 
Catalysing these efforts are new-product innovations and introductions that meet important performance requirements in MCUs, sensors, power – including wide bandgap technologies like Silicon Carbide– and connectivity that will dramatically improve Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2X) Communications. We will not see fleets of self-driving cars in 2017, but our inexorable progress to them is well underway.

IoT will transform markets

The IoT is creating or transforming a broad range of markets that all rely on the same technology bricks: flexible processing options, connectivity, security, power management, and analog functions. Add the right design tools and software ecosystems to designers’ creativity to quickly and easily convert ideas into prototypes and you get the right recipe for a significant further expansion of IoT devices across all categories in 2017.
 

 
Expect further strides in use-time, connectivity, security and wireless charging for most of the personal devices we are already familiar with, including smartphones and wearables. 2017 should see also the first major wave of new devices and form factors for Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) for both consumer- and professional-grade applications.
 
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