Future of Semiconductors @ #WEF2022 (#DecadeofTheChips)

It’s been a rollercoaster few years for all, with businesses and leaders still addressing daily challenges from sustainability to equality, but we also face another setback – how do we address the semiconductor crisis? Technology has done more for equality, sustainability and health, amongst other things, than any other tool on the planet, providing us with the ability to process large amounts of information, diagnose, measure, forecast, and report... Could we even make a dent in sustainability goals without technology and the ability to assess the latest developments and simulate the varying scenarios that are prevalent today.

I had the pleasure of hosting Blake Moret (CEO & Chairman Rockwell), Keyvan Esfarjani (Chief Operations Officer, Intel), Erik Ekudden (CTO, Ericsson) and Martin Eisenhut (Lead Partner Auto & Industrials, Kearney) at the #WEF2022 in Davos for a discussion on the "Future of Semiconductors"

My key takeaways from our discussions:

• Semiconductor growth is on an unprecedented trajectory, digitization is an unstoppable trend, "cars are moving computers", factories are just getting digitized, surgeons can virtually scrub into any operating theatre around the world, and more.
• Leading & legacy nodes is not one vs the other - they will both exists, one of the best explanation I have heard, Keyvan simplifies it into a very simple mathematical / optimization problem.?Chips produced by leading nodes are very very expensive, so it makes no sense to move all chips to leading nodes and the job can be done by older nodes i.e. horses for courses.?Enter chiplets, a means to make best of all the world work together.?The whole is to bring the leading and legacy together to create systems that are optimized for both cost and performance. So as we keep building NEW Fabs, there is as much a?need to keep running the OLD fabs. If I borrow an analogy from the shipping industry, just because you can air ship everything, should you? Similarly, just because you can make chips using latest technology, should you? Pick the best horse for the course.
• Digital Manufacturing is just getting started and it will keep going, per Blake, and that will require chips and lots of them.?Next big thing in manufacturing will be Software driven Equipment / Manufacturing enabled by AI, which again needs chips and lots of them. That is not where manufacturing equipment will stop, the next big move is to move towards Software drive Equipment, that will require leading nodes for running AI. Enter cloud for manufacturing and all the technologies come together - connectivity, latency, availability.
• Connectivity will keep getting faster ~100X / 10 years. We will be talking 6G by 2030 per Erik. And again these speeds will need chips. When the CTO says we will provide 100X speeds for the same energy foot print, that means this has become an engineering problem, what I like to call making sustainability sustainable. Available, Reliable, Resilient and Responsible will be themes for how connectivity of the future needs to develops

Semiconductors is not just about assets but also about humans and talent. Talent not just for the sciences, but making them the right way, and when a chip makers says, the right way, we know they are making sure they are accretive not just to their shareholders, nations but also humanity at a higher level. Could the rest of the industries learn from the chip industry on how to support sustainability goals - 95% of water recycled and 80% consumed energy being renewable, that is pretty high bar to stat with.

To conclude - we are in for a wonderful ride on the back of the horse called "chips", my hats off to the semiconductor and technology industry in their efforts to make the world a better place.?Till next time, see you all for the next edition of "Future of Semiconductors" @ #WEF2023

My sincere thanks to: Blake, Keywan, Erik and Martin for their insights.

This discussion would not have been possible with the energies of Riccardo (Intel), Mikael (Erikson), and my Kearney colleagues Johan, Mike, Ben, Thomas, Juliana?and Can