Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/623116
January 2016 • The PCB Magazine 35 FACING INCREDIBLE TIMES: ROBIN TAYLOR'S VISION OF THE FUTURE Figure 3: high growth rate for wafer level packaging (Wlp)—what's ahead for ic substrates? presently exploring embedded trace technolo- gies and photoimageable dielectrics to shrink microvias to the 10 micron level and increase wiring density towards two to five micron line- and-space. Glass interposers offered high-mod- ulus, low-warpage characteristics with high in- terconnection density. The flip-chip embedded interposer-carrier combined interposer and organic substrate, eliminating the solder joints between interposer and organic substrate and offering another alternative for high-density system-in-package. Seemingly no end to the inventory of expo- nentially accelerating advances in semiconduc- tor and packaging technologies, shrouded in a techno-language of acronyms and jargon under- stood only by the elite and incomprehensible to the majority, but what would be the outcome so far as humanity was concerned? Where would it all lead? What was Robin Taylor's vision? He ran through a catalogue of scenarios, all totally plausible on the basis of logical projec- tion from current state-of-the-art to a decade hence: • Computers with processing power rivaling the speed of the human brain for $1000, an In- ternet of Everything with 100 billion connect- ed devices, collecting data through a trillion sensors and driving a data revolution beyond our imagination generating a world of perfect knowledge about anything, anytime, anywhere, for eight billion connected people, five billion of whom would be potential new consumers added to the world economy. • Dematerialisation, demonetisation and democratisation of today's inefficient business systems, with protocols such as Blockchain, en- abling secure digital transfer of assets and infor- mation, decentralised cloud storage of sensitive data, smart, unbreakable contracts and digital IP. • Disruptive digital innovations in health- care, with genomic sequencing and machine learning revealing the root causes of disease, biometric monitoring enabling timely diagno- sis and robotic surgery routinely and cost-effec- tively available. • Developments in augmented and virtual real- ity resulting in dramatic changes to user interfaces Feature