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Thermal Interface Materials (TIM) are not glamourous but are often an essential component found in all manner of electronic and energy storage applications. Indeed, they are absolutely pervasive. They are truly a diverse technology in terms of suppliers, material options, deposition techniques, applications, market requirement and performance levels. This makes them difficult to analyse.

Diesel generator sets remain crucial to many key industries and are a multi-billion dollar global market.

As society and equipment become more mobile and remote from grids, diesel and gas gensets will be bought in larger numbers for a few years yet - possibly peaking at around $30 billion global market size when over 600GW will be deployed. The Zero Genset market will rise to at least $100 billion if it replaces significant grid power.

IDTechEx attended the event last week to meet with key stakeholders including industrial OEMs, power module manufacturers, established semiconductor companies and innovative new GaN (gallium nitride) and SiC (silicon carbide) developers to report back on the current and future trends. The following article is the second of two parts and provides a summary of some of the key GaN related developments and at the event and their impact on various industries and applications.

Autonomous mobility, in the general public's eye, is now synonymous with cars. Whilst this might be the largest ultimate prize, it is by no means the only commercial manifestation of this technology. Indeed, as the IDTechEx Research report New Robotics and Drones 2018-2038: Technologies, Forecasts, Players demonstrates, numerous autonomous mobile robots are being commercialized in applications where there is (a) a clear commercial purpose and (b) a more structured and predictable environment.

Winners of the IDTechEx Show! USA Awards - Energy Harvesting, Energy Storage and Electric Vehicles. The annual IDTechEx Show! USA awards were presented in Santa Clara last week during the drinks reception at the end of day one.

ARM is at the top of its game and its remarkable advances lead the field in most of the sectors covered in the forthcoming IDTechEx Show! May 10-11, with its 3000 paying delegates, 200 exhibitors and 225 presentations in nine parallel conferences. That is why ARM is giving a cornerstone presentation at the start of all of them.

"Death by a Thousand Cuts" was the brutal appraisal of the power generation goliaths by Jeffrey Eckel of Hannon Armstrong, the leading energy investment house, at the Barclays Future Energy Conference December 2016 in London.

IDTechEx expects EVs to create significant electricity demand in about ten years and be key to huge improvements in local noise and air pollution and in global warming reduction.

While there are obviously similarities, different applications have different key requirements of the TIMs. In all cases, the TIM needs to minimise stress, prevent electromigration of its fillers, and maximise adhesion.