ST' Alessandro Cremonesi on IoT, SoC, safety and security trends in semiconductors

In an interview with EE Herald, Alessandro Cremonesi, Group Vice President, General Manager, Central Labs STMicroelectronics answers to queries on latest semiconductor industry trend including 7nm, SoC, power semiconductor, ST's future tech, and safety and security. Q1. What are your thoughts on continuation of Moore's Law? After 7nm, is there any dependable hope on even going smaller? Alessandro Cremonesi: Technically we see a path to go below 7nm, but the challenge is not simply the technology. Investments in technology R&D, in manufacturing lines, and product design also need to be made—and these are substantial. We expect few players and industry sectors will be capable of paying that expense. Q2. SoC is popular among many applications. What are the new trends you're seeing in SoC market other than the mobiles and personal computing? Alessandro Cremonesi: The IoT and the Cloud are two new markets that are benefitting from extensive usage of SoCs and the capabilities of manufacturers to miniaturize devices, increase performance, and power efficiency while reducing their power consumption and cost. Q3. These days discrete semiconductors and power semiconductors are growing faster than VLSI chips. What are the technology and market trends pushing sales of discrete and power semiconductors? Alessandro Cremonesi: Eff...