What Will It Look Like
in the Post-IT Era?

Samsung Electronics President Hwang foresees the arrival of 'Fusion Technology Era'

Samsung Electronics Semiconductor President Hwang Chang-kyu predicted the arrival of the so-called fusion technology era following the IT era.
Samsung Electronics President Hwang said, "Semiconductors have played leading roles in the so-called age of convergence by integrating all content, including music, moving images, games and TV into a digital gadget, and a 'fusion era'will come in the future where the IT industry can be merged with all industries like medical, energy, space and environment fields."He made the forecast while delivering a keynote speech during the Seoul Digital Forum held at Grande Sheraton Walkerhill Hotel in Seoul on May 26.
Hwang said, "A new dimension of convergence, different from the current one of simply combining technologies and gadgets, will take place. In the next five to 10 years, the fusion technology will form a new paradigm, removing all boundaries in all business and industry classification like IT, biology technology and nano-technology."Hwang's prediction about the potential arrival of fusion technology era has become the latest topic of discussion in the semiconductor industry, industrial analysts say, adding that things that can be conceivable in scientific fiction movies could be materialized thanks to the development of advanced semiconductor chips. Hwang's forecast is that the semiconductor field, which has spearheaded the global IT boom after the 1990s, will be made available in all industrial fields like energy, medical and life science.
Behind the strides of the IT industry, which started with the launch of the PC era in the 1990s, is the advancement of semiconductor technologies. The so-called digital revolution that began in 2000 was owed to the development of such technologies as DRAMs, NAND Flash Memory chips and CPUs. In particular, the latest trend of convergence that began last year has shattered the traditional concept of IT gadgets. Samsung Electronics President Hwang's prediction is that the convergence trend in the IT field will spread to all industrial fields.
He said the degree of integration has doubled every year and technology development has picked up speed, but the semiconductor sector may evolve at a fast pace to the extent that no one knows what direction it heads and what technology will come.
Hwang foresees the production of a 20 TB-super capacity memory card in 2015 on top of the release of a 10-nanometer process in the next five and 10 years.
The futuristic chips under development or at a stage of conceiving a concept Hwang envisages in the future include the LAB On a Chip, a chip combining memory, logic circuits and software that could think and analyze on its own; a capsule-type chip loaded with Flash memory and bio sensor, a chip that could treat cancer without an operation when it is inserted into the human body; and an eco-friendly power generation chip that could generate power through solar energy.
He also forecast the possibility of a super capacity memory and CPU-mounted chip with the same function as the human brain around the year 2030. nw

Samsung Electronics Semiconductor President Hwang Chang-kyu