A YEAR AGO, this column contemplated the road ahead for semiconductor-based products that build on basic design, test, process, and device technologies. In late 2011, a workshop on the "Future of IT and Society" presented several broad visions of how societal changes will build on semiconductor-based products and information technology in such contexts as social mobility, healthcare, security, and mankind's relationship to the environment. Prediction of "the road ahead" at a societal level--with a meaningful time horizon (and with causal connections to underlying product roadmaps that connect, in turn, to underlying technology roadmaps)--presents a daunting, yet invaluable goal for researchers, governments, and entrepreneurs alike.
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