Innovations in Wearables, Heads-up Displays, SoC, VCSEL, E-textiles, Augmented Reality, Micro-LED, 5G Chipsets, and Semiconductor Lasers

This Microelectronics TechVision Opportunity Engine (TOE) profiles developments in profiles developments in wearables, heads-up displays, SoCs, VCSELs, E-textiles, augmented reality, Micro-LEDs, 5G chipsets, and semiconductor lasers. Innovations include reconfigurable hardware platform with integrated SoC and FPGA, Graphene-enabled terahertz photodetector that can absorb a wide range of wavelengths, heads-up wearable display technology that aids metrics tracking for swimmers, wearable personal thermostat that can adjust human body temperature, wafer processing technology for improved VCSEL yield, low cost and high performance smart fabric for body sensing, intelligent AR solution for industrial workforce support, color conversion technology for micro-LED displays, single-crystal aluminum nitride-based filter technology, indium phosphide-based infrared diode lasers, a hardware platform for 5G communication, and a multimode 5G modem for 5G communication networks.

The Microelectronics TechVision Opportunity Engine captures global electronics-related innovations and developments on a weekly basis. Developments are centered on electronics attributed by low power and cost, smaller size, better viewing, display and interface facilities, wireless connectivity, higher memory capacity, flexibility, and wearables. Research focus themes include small footprint lightweight devices (CNTs, graphene), smart monitoring and control (touch and haptics), energy efficiency (LEDs, OLEDs, power and thermal management, energy harvesting), and high speed and improved conductivity devices (SiC, GaN, GaAs).

Miniaturization, a move toward lower power consumption, and the need for enhanced features are driving innovations in the electronics sector. Technology focus areas include semiconductor manufacturing and design, flexible electronics, 3D integration/IC, MEMS and NEMS, solid-state lighting, advanced displays, nanoelectronics, wearable electronics, brain-computer interface, advanced displays, near field communication, and next-generation data storage or memory.