Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1216587
38 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2020 IIoT, and electric car markets are driving semi- conductors and electronic assemblies. In gen- eral, it definitely looks good for both capital markets and software. Feinberg: How do you think it's going to be over the next year to two years? Chatterjee: It looks like it will probably grow. They have these same issues with China hav- ing problems, but in general, the market itself is going to grow. Feinberg: You're in an indus- try segment that is needed, and there's a demand for it. 5G is something that is now starting to take hold, and there's even some discussion about the next standard for 6G. What effect will 5G have on your business and prod- ucts over the next couple of years? Chatterjee: Manufacturing companies usually aren't trendsetters; they will not adapt to things before the consumer industry. 5G will probably reach the consumer side this year. The rollout is happening, but handsets have to be available. The infrastructure has to get ubiquitous. The pricing has to be known. All that will take about a year to settle. It will take another year for the whole con- sumer side of 5G to get fleshed out; after that, it will go into manufacturing and other sectors. Pricing will be key. Why pay a monthly fee when every machine in the factory is already hooked up for free? There's also a lot of RF interference in a factory, so will that cause any problems? Right now, wireless is not the pre- ferred way to network a factory. We still have to see how well it works in an RF noise envi- ronment. Feinberg: People are using good, old wired intercoms to communicate in many factories because you avoid that problem. Chatterjee: Even two-way radios don't work very well in a factory. Feinberg: Is there anything else you would like to share? Chatterjee: Right now, there's a lot of talk about data security and putting data in the cloud. I believe that all of those things are going to get worked out very soon because it's less expen- sive to store data in the cloud than to buy your own archival hardware. Feinberg: And set up your own servers. Chatterjee: The low cost is going to drive cloud storage acceptance in the industry, and most things will be on the cloud soon—although maybe not all the raw data, of course. Then, it could be ubiquitous; a lot of things that are avail- able in your manufacturing- related applications can then be available on your con- sumer devices. Right now, it doesn't exist, but it will happen soon. Feinberg: For security reasons, do you see any use for a blockchain? Chatterjee: A blockchain would be one of the technologies that could be used to secure files, but manufacturing is not where people are going to implement something first. Usually, it's banking and finance; they have more need for it, so they do it. Once banking and finance sort it out, and once it becomes trustworthy and repeatable and secure, then other people will use it. Feinberg: Ranjan, I appreciate this conversa- tion. Thank you very much. Chatterjee: Thank you. SMT007