Applied Materials, the Santa Clara, California-based semiconductor and supplies engineering firm, believes that the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the information economy are fueling a new era of development for chipmakers and the semiconductor gear business. “While consumer devices drove electronics demand over the past decade, non-discretionary commercial investments in IoT, Big Data, AI and 5G infrastructure are poised to lead the next decade,” says Srinivas Satya, president & MD, Applied Materials India, in an interview with Sudhir Chowdhary. Excerpts:
How is Applied Materials by means of its semiconductor innovations laying the ground for mainstreaming of technologies such as 5G, IoT and automation?
Among all the emerging technologies megatrends, AI in distinct has key implications for the electronics and semiconductor ecosystem. AI will move us from an application-centric planet to a information-1st model exactly where practically all information will be generated by machines. Thus the industry’s development will not be restricted by the capability of humans to make or consume information.
In order to make sense of the enormous volumes of offered information, a new method to computing is needed—one that is based on workload-certain hardware constructed from customised and completely new kinds of chips. And when AI has the capability to bring a lot of rewards, it also consumes an growing quantity of energy. This locations a large crucial on the business to provide key improvements in the functionality-per-watt of computing options.
At Applied Materials, we have aligned our approach and investments about this vision of the future. We are focused on delivering supplies engineering options that increase the functionality, energy, region, price and time-to-industry (PPACt) of semiconductor devices for the AI era.
Due to AI and the information economy, there is development in demand for semiconductor gear. Which industries are driving this demand and how does the nature of demand differ in between industries?
The dependency in between the worldwide economy and technologies is higher today. This is generating robust demand for semiconductors and semiconductor gear. Several key technologies inflections are accelerating as work-from-residence, residence schooling and on the internet retail drive substantial investments in cloud information centres and communications infrastructure.
The digital transformation of providers and the economy as a entire is also broadening the lengthy-term development drivers for the semiconductor business. While customer devices drove electronics demand more than the previous decade, non-discretionary industrial investments in IoT, Big Data, AI and 5G infrastructure are poised to lead the next decade.
With Moore’s law increasing obsolete, is there a new law the business is seeking at to make sure continuous improvement?
At a time when the want for semiconductor innovation has in no way been higher, the standard driver of chip technologies progress—classic Moore’s Law scaling— has run out of steam. As a outcome, the semiconductor business is adopting a new playbook for delivering the necessary improvements in PPACt required to unlock the prospective of IoT, Big Data and AI.
This new PPACt playbook contains 5 essential components: new semiconductor architectures, 3D structures, novel supplies, new methods to shrink chips and new methods to connect person chips with each other with sophisticated packaging. Applied Materials is positioned to accelerate the new PPACt playbook with the biggest portfolio of technologies to make, shape, modify, analyse and connect chip structures and devices.
The demand for AI-devoted chips has grown considerably. What are you undertaking to meet this increasing demand?
The breadth of Applied’s portfolio permits us to combine technologies in revolutionary new methods and allow the breakthroughs in PPACt required to unlock the prospective of AI. In addition to advancements in our standard unit procedure systems, we are bringing to industry new solutions referred to as Integrated Materials Solutions. These can combine various technologies in a single technique to assist clients make new kinds of semiconductor devices and structures. Recently we introduced an Integrated Materials Solution for selective tungsten deposition that removes a key bottleneck to continued scaling of transistors in sophisticated foundry-logic nodes.
How does the firm match into India’s push to establish itself as an electronics manufacturing hub?
The Indian electronics sector is witnessing tremendous development, as demand is poised to exceed $400 billion by 2023-24. Domestic production has grown from $29 billion in 2014-15 to practically $70 billion in 2019-20 (CAGR of 25%). The government has unveiled 3 schemes with an outlay of Rs 48,000 crore to market electronics manufacturing. Just as the government seeks to allow improvement via ‘Making India Atmanirbhar in electronics’ initiative, we look to encourage partnerships across distinct business sectors.