Semiconductors, Computing & AI

It is often imagined that agriculture is alien to new technologies. This is far from reality. In fact, agriculture has always been a pioneer in the adoption of new technologies, embracing motor/power, modified seed, and agrochemical technologies over many decades to boost productivity.

Nearly every sector is proposing the use of artificial intelligence. Materials science R&D is relatively late to this trend, and there are many industry-specific hurdles, but the opportunities are beginning to be realized and the potential impact is significant.

Deep learning has revolutionized image recognition and analysis, making unprecedented performance leaps between 2010-2014. These rapid advancements enabled the development of automated, accurate, accessible, and cost-effective medical diagnostics.

When considering the prospects of an emerging technology, it is easy to make broad-brush claims. For example, stating that 'greater numbers of connected devices, commonly referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), will increase demand for printed sensors' seems an uncontroversial statement.

Radar uptake in vehicles will continue its increase, driven both by an increase in the number of adopting cars and by the radar content per vehicle. Both trends are driven by the increasing adoption of ADAS and will be sustained and strengthened in the longer term by the emergence of highly automated or autonomous driving.

This webinar provides insight into the industry's evolution, and will cover: Drivers for the transition to electric buses, Challenges to bus electrification, The history and future of bus electrification in key regions, The outlook for battery electric buses, plug-in hybrid buses and fuel cell electric buses, and The background to IDTechEx's new granular forecasts for the electric city bus market.

Cars electrify, now farm vehicles. The new 215-page IDTechEx report, "Electric Vehicles and Robotics in Agriculture 2020-2030" explains. This is a drill-down from the popular report, "Electric Vehicles in Construction, Agriculture and Mining 2020-2030".

In July 2020, the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology announced a standardised UK system for detecting coronavirus in wastewater, to provide an early warning of future outbreaks, reducing the reliance of testing large populations.

This article highlights some key material development trends. More specifically, approaches to increase the thermal conductivity (in W/mK) of TIMs are considered. This is an important trend because the IDTechEx assessment is that the market, in absolute terms, for high or ultrahigh thermal conductivity TIM materials, will inevitably rise.

The new IDTechEx report, "Materials Opportunities in Emerging Photovoltaics 2020-2040", is based on interviews by multi-lingual, PhD level IDTechEx analysts across the world and 20 years tracking the research and applications. They predict $38 billion dollars in 2040 without colliding with the silicon-in-glass "power station" business. There will be many opportunities for premium pricing of its new specialist materials.