As IEEE Spectrum editors, we satisfaction ourselves on recognizing promising applied sciences and following them from the analysis part by improvement and in the end deployment. In each January situation, we give attention to the applied sciences that at the moment are poised to realize vital milestones within the new yr.
This situation was curated by Senior Editor Samuel Okay. Moore, our in-house professional on semiconductors. So it’s no shock that he included a narrative on Intel’s plan to roll out two momentous chip applied sciences within the subsequent few months.
For “Intel Hopes to Leapfrog Its Competitors,” Moore directed our editorial intern, Gwendolyn Rak, to report on the chance the chip large is taking by introducing two applied sciences directly. We started monitoring the primary expertise, nanosheet transistors, in 2017. By the time we gave all the small print in a 2019 characteristic article, it was clear that this system was destined to be the successor to the FinFET. Moore first noticed the second expertise, back-side energy supply, on the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting in 2019. Less than two years later, Intel publicly dedicated to incorporating the tech in 2024.
Speaking of dedication, the U.S. navy’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has performed an unlimited half in bankrolling a number of the basic advances that seem in these pages. Many of our readers will likely be accustomed to the robots that Senior Editor Evan Ackerman coated throughout DARPA’s humanoid problem nearly 10 years in the past. Those robots had been basically analysis initiatives, however as Ackerman reviews in “Year of the Humanoid,” a number of firms will begin up pilot initiatives in 2024 to see if this era of humanoids is able to roll up its metaphorical sleeves and get right down to enterprise.
More just lately, totally homomorphic encryption (FHE) has burst onto the scene. Moore, who’s been protecting the Cambrian explosion in chip architectures for AI and different various computing modalities because the mid-teens, notes that, just like the robotics problem, DARPA was the preliminary driver.
“You’d count on the three firms DARPA funded to provide you with a chip, although there was no assure they’d commercialize it,” says Moore, who wrote “Chips to Compute With Encrypted Data Are Coming.” “But what you wouldn’t count on is three extra startups, independently of DARPA, to come back out with their very own FHE chips on the similar time.”
Senior Editor Tekla S. Perry’s story about phosphorescent OLEDs, “A Behind-the-Screens Change for OLED,” is definitely a deep lower for us. One of the primary characteristic articles Moore edited at Spectrum approach again in 2000 was Stephen Forrest’s article on natural electronics. His lab developed the primary phosphorescent OLED supplies, that are massively extra environment friendly than the fluorescent ones. Forrest’s analysis led to the founding of Universal Display Corp., which, after greater than 20 years, is lastly about to commercialize the final of its trio of phosphorescent colours—blue.
Then there’s our cowl story about deepfakes and their potential impression on dozens of nationwide elections later this yr. We’ve been monitoring the rise of deepfakes since mid-2018, once we ran a narrative about AI researchers betting on whether or not or not a deepfake video about a politician would obtain greater than 2 million views throughout the U.S. midterm elections that yr. As Senior Editor Eliza Strickland reviews in “This Election Year, Look for Content Credentials,” a number of firms and business teams are working arduous to make sure that deepfakes don’t take down democracy.
Best needs for a wholesome and affluent new yr, and luxuriate in this yr’s expertise forecast. It’s been years within the making.
This article seems within the January 2024 print situation.
This publish was corrected on 2 January. Stephen Forrest was concerned within the creation of Universal Display, however he was not a cofounder.
