Summary:
In this report, NanoMarkets identifies the present and future opportunities
for semiconductor materials and manufacturing equipment companies targeting the
budding nanoelectronics industry. The report analyzes and comments on the
efforts of both established and start-up companies in the nanoelectronics field,
evaluates the viability of competing technology "approaches" for
nanoelectronics and pinpoints current and future market potential.
Background:
As the chipmakers push manufacturing into the realm of nanotechnology - and
state-of-the-art fabs are already producing sub-100 nm electronic devices - they
are finding that conventional chip making techniques are running out of steam.
Specifically, the devices that the semiconductor industry believes it will be
building in a couple of years are too small to be built using standard
lithography techniques. Since, for more than 30 years, the economics of the
semiconductor industry has been centered around Moore's Law -- the idea that the
number of transistors on a chip will double every 18 months -- this has sent
research teams and commercial firms scurrying to find betters ways of making
nanodevices.
Nanoelectronics encompasses both new silicon-based manufacturing processes
and entirely new approaches involving nanotubes, nanowires, polymers and organic
molecules. The potential revenues from new electronics manufacturing and
materials processes are huge, because they must be widely adopted by the
semiconductor industry if it is to continue on the same growth path as it did in
past decades.
The semiconductor industry, however, is notoriously production oriented and
what is seldom discussed, is whether there will be any real demand from the top
of the value chain to justify the electronics industry's investment in
nanotechnology. After all, the demand driver behind Moore's Law in the past was
that millions of users were waiting for a chip that could run their favorite
software at a faster speed than the current generation chip. Today, nobody is
waiting for the next generation of Pentiums to run their Windows OS faster.
Similarly, most mobile phones, consumer electronics, and home appliances use
embedded electronics devices that are well within the capability of standard
microelectronics.
The commercial justification for nanoelectronics would seem to lie in
entirely new trends in computing, communications and IT. In this unique report,
NanoMarkets enables readers to better understand drivers and demand patterns for
nanoelectronics products, such as the trend towards "pervasive
computing," "electronic paper" and super smart mobile devices.
Which of these trends are real? Which are hype? Taking our demand-side analysis
as a starting point, the report digs down to what requirements nanoelectronics
devices will have to meet over the next few years and which of the R&D
programs and commercial companies seem best prepared to seize the available
opportunities.
The report will include forecasts of revenues generated by the
nanoelectronics business broken out by component function (processor, logic,
etc.) and by materials platform. As with all NanoMarkets reports, this report
will also profile and analyze the activities of both public companies and
start-ups active in this space.
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