Micro/Nano-Electronics and Advances: Impact on Communications in the 21st Century

The dramatic growth of Micro/Nano electronics, based on the use of silicon semiconductor devices having feature sizes in the range of µm going down to nm in the last few decades has few parallels in the technological history of the world. In particular: Micro/Nano electronics technology has been following  the time honoured Moore’s Law almost from the very beginning of the Integrated Circuit (IC) era and the device packing density at the chip level doubling year by year during 1965-2015. Moreover, it is also backed by the following additional observations in this period, such as:

Decrease of minimum device feature size by a factor > 100.
Increase of chip (or die) area by > X400.
Increase in packing efficiency on the chip by > X400.
Increase in the number of devices on the chip by > X500 million. 
Decrease in the power-delay product of a binary transition by a factor > 0.2 million.
Increase in the device/package reliability by several orders of magnitude.

Considering these trends on the technological plane and that minimum dimensional limits have yet to be reached in the on-chip devices, it is possible that miniaturization will continue further on the same scale as before for some more years. It is also observed that every electronic function will continue to be influenced by these advances which will have a lasting impact on all the applications of this branch of electronics, both in the short and the long terms. Of the wide range of applications of Micro/NanoElectronics and Advances, the area of Communications has been witnessing major transformations in recent years leading it to become an inseparable part of human society. Besides providing the benefits of ‘Reduced distance between peoples’ and ‘Improved understanding among societies’, they are turning the ‘World into a Global Village’. Major implications of these technological advances will be covered in the presentation. 
      
In the last part of the presentation, the future prospects in Micro/Nano-Electronics will be outlined with a view to open up a few questions on future advances in miniaturization and their applications in the service of humanity.

About the Speaker;
Prof. B. S. Sonde received his B.E. (Telecom) and M.Sc. (Engg.) degrees from the University of Pune (1958, 1959) with high distinction and Ph.D. in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru (1963). He was a member of the academic staff of IISc (1964-97), occupying key positions as Professor of ECE from 1973, Chairman, Department of ECE (1981-85), Chairman, Division of Electrical Sciences (1985-92), Dean, Faculty of Engineering (1992-94) and the Tata-Chem. Chair (1994-97), until his appointment as Vice Chancellor, Goa University (1997-2002). During this period, he was also appointed as Member of the Council of IISc (1998-2001). His fields of interest cover Microelectronics, Instrumentation, Digital Technology & Applications in Electronics and Communications, wherein he has trained scores of students for B.E., M.E., M.Sc.(Engg.) and Ph.D. Degrees of IISc, published over 90 papers in prestigious scientific/technical journals, a series of 10 text/reference books widely used in engineering education in India and also many technical reports.

During 1974-81, Prof. Sonde planned and set up the Centre for Electronics Design and Technology at IISc, an Indo-Swiss Joint Project for training R&D engineers for industry. He was Advisor to Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok for establishing its Electronics Design Laboratory under Indo-Thai Cooperation (1986-91) and Chairman, Expert Committee of Bharat Electronics Ltd., for planning the setting up of its Central Research Laboratories (1987-88). Besides, he has been a Visiting Faculty at many Universities abroad, notably Tohoku University, Japan, Stanford University, USA, ETH/Zurich, EPF/ Lausanne, Switzerland and Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. Also, he has been Chairman/Member of Advisory/Governing Bodies of many Institutions in India, including CSIR laboratories, ISRO centres, UGC, AICTE, NAAC, NBA, KSHEC and IITs/Universities.  Prof. Sonde was a Member of the Electronics Commission, Govt. of India (1986-89), Engineering Panel of UGC (1987-89), Chairman, DOE Working Group on Consumer Electronics (1991-96), Founder Chairman, ISHM (India) (1985-93) and President, IETE India (1992-94). Later, he was Chairman, National Board of Accreditation (2003-05) and Chairman, All India Board of UG Studies in Engineering &Technology (2009-12), both under AICTE. More recently, he was a Mentor/Performance Auditor for technical institutions in India under World Bank-MHRD Project TEQIP (2004-17).

Prof. Sonde has been an invited speaker at many national/international Conferences including,  1st ASEAN Conference on ‘S&T for Development’, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1986), 20th Bhabha Memorial Address at 31st IETE ATC, Guwahati (1988), 7th  European Hybrid Microelectronics Conference, Hamburg, Germany (1989), 82nd Indian Science Congress, Kolkata (1995), 7th Conference of Forum Engelberg on ‘Europe-Asia: S&T for their Future’, Switzerland (1996) and International Conference on Electrical Contacts and Applications, Nagoya, Japan (1999). He has been a recipient of many awards, notably Ramlal Wadhwa Gold Medal of IETE (1978), Jaya Jayant Award for Teaching Excellence of IISc (1992), Distinguished Alumnus Award of College of Engineering, Pune (1994), Chapter Development Award of ISHM-The Microelectronics Society, USA (1996), Life-Time Achievement Awards of Instruments Society of India (2002),   Systems Society of India (2010) and IETE (2013) and IEEE-Bangalore Medal of Honour (2018).   Prof. Sonde is a Distinguished Fellow of IETE and SEE, Honorary Fellow of ISTE and a Senior Member (LS) of IEEE (USA).  Prof. Sonde has been an active participant at Conferences/Symposia held by IETE, IEEE and other technical professional societies, edited/published many proceedings of such events and he has been closely connected with the development of quality higher education in general and electronics & communication engineering education, research and industry in the country.