Page 6 - EE Times Europe Magazine | April2019

6 EE|Times EUROPE

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
Yole’s CEO Identifies Five

Investment-Worthy Trends

By Anne-Françoise Pelé

ehind every strategic decision lies the mobile-phone or car maker, you move Jean-Christophe Eloy,
a wealth of market research and from the few-cent sensor business to the Yole CEO
analysis. Since its creation in 1998, few-dollar business,” said Eloy. Companies
Bmarket research firm Yole Dévelop- like Knowles then multiply the value of their Mobile context awareness enhances the
pement (Lyon, France) has been committed selling and climb the value chain. quality of service by providing more relevant
to looking beyond the obvious to provide a reli- responses, but it also raises security and pri-
able barometer of global electronics industry TWO TRACKS FOR AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN vacy concerns. A wealth of personal data and
trends. Acquisitions, partnerships, product Auto manufacturers are not born equal. Tesla, private information is accessible, and “nobody
launches, economic downturns or upturns, founded in 2003 by eclectic Elon Musk, calls is really sure of the way these devices are
even specific customer requests — all raise for “disruptive ways of working.” Because managing the data,” said Eloy.
questions and open new fields of investigation. it has no business history, it can map out “I am surprised to see, every quarter,
In an interview with EE Times Europe, technical and supply chain strategies on problems of data leaks in all the big applica-
Yole CEO Jean-Christophe Eloy outlined five a clean slate. As a result, Tesla “is able to tions,” he added. Sensitive data immediately
technology trends worthy of investigation and jump on solutions that are years ahead becomes vulnerable to cybersecurity risks, but
investment in the months and years to come. compared with other companies,” said Eloy. customers have had limited reactions. “This is
Tesla is agile; it moves and adapts quickly. not acceptable.”
HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING In contrast, traditional automakers such as In 2018, Europe came up with the General
Quantum computing could open possibili- Toyota, Renault-Nissan, and BMW have years Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which
ties we never even considered in chemical of investment in technologies and long- is still considered the most comprehensive
research, financial services, health care, life term relationships with suppliers, making it privacy law. On the other side of the Atlantic,
sciences, manufacturing, and defense. “almost impossible for them to restart from a Apple preaches privacy and has made it a
Quantum computing is one of the key white sheet.” powerful marketing asset.
trends likely to have a long-term impact on Today, Eloy said, companies simply say,
the industry, and Yole’s customers are eagerly INSIDE THE DATA CENTER “‘Sorry, we will do better next time,’ [but] my
asking for guidance. What is the expected sili- Driven by the adoption of cloud-based feeling is that there will be an amplification
con content in a quantum computer? How will technologies, data centers are proliferating in of this movement in the next few years to
the new paradigm affect business in the next size and number around the world. The total make sure your credit card is not hacked just
five to 10 years? Will it change the structure number of hyperscale data centers — housing because you are ordering something from
of the industry? data, enabling entertainment, connecting your mobile phone or your home assistant.”
“In quantum computers, there is a lot consumers everywhere, and powering and Data leakage over the cloud is also a major
of coding, cryogenics is huge, and silicon cooling infrastructures — now exceeds 500. concern for corporations and governments.
is nothing,” said Eloy. “The value is not in Given those trends, Yole has received In response, said Eloy, “the movement to the
the silicon but in the system generating the repeated customer requests for more edge is huge. It will never stop, which means
cryogenics.” intelligence on data centers. But for now, there will be more and more closed systems to
Many questions also surround neuromor- “everybody is driving in the dark,” said Eloy. protect data as much as possible.”
phic imaging and computing, “which change “Data centers are giving us a headache.”
the way we get and compute information,” he Over the years, Yole’s analysts have closely PROCESSING AT THE EDGE
said. Neuromorphic approaches are not only observed the data-center market, including The transition from the cloud to the edge is
game-changers technologically but could also ups and downs in investments, movements indeed accelerating. Despite always-on power
change the value structure of the market. Yole in the supply chain, and technology choices. consumption and data-processing constraints,
is “trying to understand how the value flow But without access to the parts, analysts can’t edge computing is emerging, placing the
is changing the supply chain and who will be do the reverse engineering to understand calculation at the system level.
able to do something in that area,” said Eloy. what is really used. Such opacity is due to the As Moore’s Law fast approaches its physical
Knowles Electronics, for instance, identi- direct relationships between the companies limits, the industry is under pressure to
fied a turning point in edge audio processing designing and ordering the data centers (e.g., develop a new type of architecture. The trend
with the emergence of artificial intelligence Amazon, Google) and the companies manu- toward systems-on-chip is decreasing because
and took actions to make its products more facturing them. The absence of intermediaries SoCs “cost a lot of money,” said Eloy.
powerful and suitable for AI. With the Google in the chain makes it difficult for Yole to Chip partitioning and chip stacking are
Pixel 4 smartphone, the Illinois-based com- gather information and build its own analysis. ways to extend Moore’s Law and yield power,
pany saw an opportunity not only to place performance, area, and cost benefits, he
microphones but also to add a processing TOWARD CONTEXT AWARENESS added. It is all about having more processing
chip, increasing its value in Google phones by With context-aware technologies, personal power without “moving the whole chip to the
a factor of four or five. devices such as smartphones and home 5-nm node.” ■
“If you combine the microphone with the assistants can now collect and process raw
ability to process the data and do specific contextual data about their users’ surround- Anne-Françoise Pelé is editor-in-chief of
things around the data with added value for ings, preferences, and behaviors in situ. eetimes.eu.

APRIL 2020 | www.eetimes.eu