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Panel Descriptions

Panel 5610: Where is the Growth in MEMS?
Moderator: Patrick Mannion, Chief Editor, TechOnline

Who will give the Energy Boost to the growing MEMS Industry?

The small micro machines are gaining steam and recognition. Applications in automotive, biotech, consumer products, industrial, medical, mobile phones and devices and many other areas are promising long-term growth and profits.

What breed of applications and new devices will energize demand and generate growth into this next, leaner and possibly meaner decade? Will it be consumer driven and focus on automotive, communication devices, music, laptops or game consoles? Or should it be industrial with sensors, semiconductor test equipment and research equipment.
Or maybe biotech /medical with its monitoring, sensoring and delivery devices?

This panel of industry insiders from different market segments will share their opinion where the MEMS industry will grow, investments and profits be made.

Panel 5620:
Winner in Emerging Consumer Applications: Low-Cost FPGAs or Custom Silicon?
Moderator: Bryan Lewis, VP and Chief Analyst, Gartner

Design costs for leading-edge custom silicon continue to skyrocket, and yet ASIC revenues continue to grow.  FPGA companies have been saying for years that they have the cost-saving solution the industry needs, while predicting that they will obsolete the ASIC market. Closer to reality is the fact that FPGA revenues suffered a decline in 2007 followed by modest growth thus far in 2008. Today, FPGA vendors are busy explaining that by providing low cost/low power FPGA devices, they can at last open wide the mass consumer market, and get FPGA growth back on track like the good old days. What will the industry make of it all?  The press wants to hear a lively debate among vendors from both perspectives as we explore the continuous challenges and opportunities in the future of custom silicon and FPGAs.

Panel 5630:  Promise and Peril of 4 G Networks
Moderator: Brian Fuller, Former Editor-in-Chief, EE Times

One of the most important technology developments of our times has the potential to play a key role in lifting the global economy out of recession. The 4G, or Fourth Generation, wireless infrastructure brings with it the promise of anywhere/anytime connectivity that can revolutionize business and culture the same way the Internet did 15 years ago. But the road from here to there, from the silicon to the systems, is perilous.
Silicon providers must deliver high-bandwidth performance, multi-band flexibility, low power and low cost. No design tradeoffs allowed. The stakes are as enormous as the network is undefined large players as well and smaller companies have placed huge bets on different approaches, whether it's Mobile WiMax, LTE, WiFi or other proposals. What are the 4G design and test challenges confronting vendors now? What are the system-architecture challenges and costs that need to be confronted for this vision of constant, high-speed connectivity to be realized? Representatives from players in the 4G space will wrestle with these issues on our panel.

Panel 5640: Portable Power Management - Dodging Moore's Law?
Moderator: John Donovan, Editor-in-Chief, Portable Design

Cell phones are the ultimate converged devices—handheld microcomputers that make calls, shoot photos and videos, play music and handle your calendar and email. Such performance is hard to reconcile with low power.

Until recently you could go to smaller chip geometries, drop your core voltage and stay ahead of the power problem. But now Moore’s Law is no longer part of the solution, it’s part of the problem. At 45 nm and below, static power is more of a problem than dynamic power.

Handsets are where the toughest power management problems—as well as leading-edge solutions—are appearing. But after all the innovation of the last few years, are we running out of tricks? Various semiconductor, IP and tool vendors as well as a device maker will discuss latest approaches that they are taking to manage the power in portable devices and how you can incorporate them into your next portable design