Keynote Abstract: Alessandro Cremonesi

Summary form only given. In his presentation, Alessandro Cremonesi will address the major challenges that the semiconductor industry will be confronted with in the context of the global ecosystem. Convergence is a clear driver for the industry and the applications fuelling the convergence are becoming increasingly complex and the need to guarantee the coexistence of a wider range of applications on a single chip is rendering system-level integration a real challenge. Most of the applications will run on platforms specifically designed for portable products, forcing the industry to reach high levels of miniaturization and high levels of power optimization versus performances in all new designs. At the same time the complexity and the capital investments required to sustain such evolution risk to bring the industry in a slow down area. For this reason new technical and industrial approaches are needed to fuel the growth. On top of "convergence", new promising applications areas for semiconductors are simultaneously appearing at the horizon. Such applications will require the integration of new competences such as bio, optical, mechanical generating new challenges for our industry but also bringing huge new market opportunities of the global ecosystem.