2017 - Another promising year for the semiconductor industry

FOLLOWING a good 2016, the electronics market is forecast to continue its positive momentum in 2017, and that is good for the semiconductor market. The increasing pervasion of intelligence and connectivity across a broad range of applications and devices, along with the need for more efficient power and resource consumption, is at the heart of this trend.

In 2017, expect car digitisation and electrification to accelerate. This is being driven by the strong demand among consumers, manufacturers and governments for three important advances. All want to make driving greener, with a strong focus on engine management, fuel efficiency and electrification. They also want to make driving safer, relying on improvements in assisted driving and security. And they want cars to be more connected, with an emphasis on infotainment and telematics.

Catalysing these efforts are new-product innovations and introductions that meet important performance requirements in MCUs (multipoint control units), sensors, power - including wide bandgap technologies such as silicon carbide - and connectivity that will dramatically improve advanced driver assistance systems (Adas) and vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) communications. We will not see fleets of self-driving cars in 2017, but our inexorable progress towards making them is well underway.