exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

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Exponential Change: What Drives It? What Does it Tell us About the Future? Jeffrey Funk Associate Professor Division of Engineering & Technology Management National University of Singapore Mail: [email protected] These slides summarize ideas that are described in a forthcoming book from Stanford University Press (Technology Change and the Rise of New Industries) and taught in a graduate course entitled ―Analyzing Hi -Tech Opportunities.‖ Other slides on my slideshare account provide more details on these ideas and the application of these ideas to various new technologies.

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These slides show how “exponential improvements” in a small number of technologies are driving most of the changes in the world, they explain the sources of these exponential improvements, and they show how we can use an understanding of these exponential improvements to think about the future. In spite of the wide spread belief that change is everywhere, most changes can be attributed to exponential improvements in a small number of technologies such as integrated circuits, magnetic storage, and fiber optics. The sources of these exponential improvements are the fact that these technologies benefit from reductions in “scale” (while others benefit from increases in scale). For example, smaller feature sizes enable faster, cheaper, and lower power ICs. More importantly, we can use an understanding of “scaling” to show how some biological, mechanical, and other phenomenon also benefit from reductions in scale. This suggests that we can expect rapid improvements in some types of bio-electronic ICs, micro-electronic mechanical systems (MEMS), and nano-technology. Similar arguments are made for systems that are constructed from such “components” and for technologies that benefit from increases in scale.

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Page 1: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Exponential Change:

What Drives It?

What Does it Tell us About the Future?

Jeffrey Funk

Associate Professor

Division of Engineering & Technology Management

National University of Singapore

Mail: [email protected]

These slides summarize ideas that are described in a forthcoming book from Stanford University Press (Technology

Change and the Rise of New Industries) and taught in a graduate course entitled ―Analyzing Hi-Tech Opportunities.‖

Other slides on my slideshare account provide more details on these ideas and the application of these ideas to

various new technologies.

Page 2: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Change is Seemingly Everywhere…….

• Products and services

– New ones continually appear

• Firms

– New ones are formed

– Existing firms exit a business, are acquired or go

bankrupt

• Governments

– New ones including new political systems and new

countries continuously emerge

Page 3: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Many Drivers of this Change

• Market based economy and supporting institutions

– Smoother functioning financial, insurance, and regulatory

systems facilitate the emergence of new products and

services and the formation of new firms

• Better methods of communication

– From postal mail services to the printing press,

telegraph, telephone, and now the Internet

– They speed up flow of information and thus promote new

ideas, technologies, strategies, policies, and even

political change

• For example, recent political upheavals in the Middle East are

partly due to new communication mediums such as Facebook

and Twitter

Page 4: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

However……………..(1)

• However, a smoother functioning market economy

and better communication technologies are clearly

not the whole story

• Both of them only indirectly lead to better products

and services, and they do this only when better

techniques/technologies are available

– Without better techniques, an improved ability to

commercialize or communicate would be meaningless

– Furthermore, better communication technologies are

clearly based on new technologies

• For Internet, it is the low cost of uploading and downloading vast

amounts of data that makes internet so powerful

Page 5: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

However……………..(2)

• But why have these communication technologies

experienced such rapid improvements, while many

other technologies have not?

• Doubling in the performance of communication and

other electronic-based technologies every one to

two years is often termed “exponential”

• In contrast to “linear” improvements

– doubling in performance of communication technologies

every one to two years has over decades led to many

orders of magnitude improvements

– Understanding why some technologies experience such

exponential change while others do not is essential to

thinking about the future

Page 6: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What drives these Improvements?

– Existing theories on technological change do not help us

– My approach to technological change

• What do these exponential improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics, Micro-electronic mechanical systems

– Telecommunications,

– Lighting and displays, Solar cells

Page 7: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

What technologies are experiencing large

changes and in particular exponential

improvements?

• In homes and offices – primarily computers, other

electronic products, telecommunication and the

Internet

• In transportation – primarily electronic controls

• In factories

– many new processes for ICs, LCDs, other electronics

– but mostly use of electronic controls and IT

• In hospitals

– many new medical equipment, but mostly improvements

in electronics for imaging and other diagnostic devices

Page 8: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

In Other Words, Large Changes are

Restricted to a Few Places

• Exponential improvements in integrated circuits (ICs)

and magnetic storage are driving many changes

– these improvements enable new/better electronic systems

– many of these new systems directly provide us with value

or indirectly provide us with more wealth

• This wealth enables us to acquire things whose costs

& performance not experiencing rapid improvements

– bigger and better houses and automobiles

– better vacations and many other things

– These slides are primarily concerned with drivers of

exponential improvements

Page 9: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What drives these improvements?

– Existing theories on technological change do not help us

– My approach to technological change

• What do these exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics, Micro-electronic mechanical systems

– Telecommunications,

– Lighting and displays, Clean energy

Page 10: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Cumulative Production Drives Cost

Reductions

• Costs fall as cumulative production grows in learning or experience curve as automated manufacturing equipment is

– introduced and organized into flow lines

• Implications: stimulating demand will lead to cost reductions. This is one reason why many governments subsidize the introduction of clean energy more than they subsidize R&D spending

• Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation also implies that increases in demand will lead to reductions in cost and improvements in performance

Page 11: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Christensen’s

theory of

disruptive

innovation implies

that performance

improvements

automatically

emerge once

demand for a low-

end innovation

emerges

Page 12: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Problems with Learning Curve

• Can’t use learning curve until production has begun

• Learning curve assumes all components unique to a new product

• Learning curve doesn’t explain why some technologies experience more improvements in cost and performance than do others

• An emphasis on cumulative production

– focuses analyses on the production of the final product

– implies that learning done outside of a factory is either unimportant or is being driven by the production of the final product

• But many cost reductions or performance improvements are the result of activities done outside of the factory

– advances in technology or science done in laboratories

– reductions in scale (e.g., ICs) or increases in scale (e.g., oil tankers)

– improvements in complementary technologies such as components whose demand are being driven by other systems

Page 13: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Consider Computers (and other electronic products)

• Conventional wisdom: costs fall as volumes increase….

• Reality

– Cost of computers dropped for same reasons that their performance rose: rapid improvements in ICs

– Improvements in ICs only partly came from introduction of automation

– Bigger reason was large reductions in scale of transistors, memory cells, and other dimensional features

– Reductions in scale required new manufacturing equipment

• depended on advances in technologies and science

• were largely developed outside of high-volume production facilities

– Rate of implementation depended more on calendar time (think of Moore’s Law) than on cumulative production volumes

Page 14: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Cost reductions aren’t being driven by

falling assembly costs Total bill of materials: 172.46

Manufacturing/assembly costs 6.50

Total 178.96

Source: //gigaom.com/apple/iphone-3gs-hardware-cost-

breakdown/

Page 15: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Consider Clean Energy

• Conventional Wisdom

– Costs fall as more electric vehicles, wind turbines, and

solar cells are produced

• Reality

– Electric vehicles: batteries are key technology and their

energy density depends on finding more appropriate

materials

– Wind turbines: costs fall as scale of turbines are increased

– Solar cells: costs per ―peak watt‖ fall as engineers and

scientists increase efficiencies, reduce material thicknesses,

and increase scale of substrates and production equipment

Page 16: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

As Bill Gates said in 2010 interview

• ―The irony is that if you actually look at the amount of money that’s been spent on feed-in tariffs and you properly account for it — tax credits, feed-in credits in Spain, solar photovoltaic stuff in Germany — the world has spent a massive amount of money which, in terms of creating both jobs and knowledge, would have been far better spent on energy research.‖ He also argues that funding theses supply-side approaches would require very little money. ―I was stunned, when I did the work with the AEIC (American Energy Innovation Council), to see that if you wanted the U.S. energy industry as a whole to fund this R&D, you’d only have to tax energy 1 percent(1).‖

• (1) See Jason Pontin’s interview of Bill Gates in Technology Review, Q&A: Bill Gates, The cofounder of Microsoft talks energy, philanthropy and management style, August 24, 2010, http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26112/page1/, accessed on August 26, 2010

Page 17: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Models are Important

• They encourage you to look in certain places

• But if the models are wrong, they encourage you to

look in the wrong places

• The learning curve suggests that

– Reductions in costs primarily come from activities done in

production facilities

– Thus, we should

• increase volumes of the final product

• subsidize the final product in order to experience increased

volumes

– In reality, technological change is much more complex

Page 18: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Time

Performance

Another Theory: New Technologies Experience Dramatic

improvements in Performance and Price Following

Emergence of New Technology

Emergence of New Technology

Page 19: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

The Data Doesn’t Support Notion of

Dramatic Improvements

• Data suggests there are smooth rates of improvements that can be characterized as incremental in nature over multiple generations of technologies

• These rates of improvements depend on the technology and the science that forms the basis of the technology

• These incremental improvements enable one to roughly understand near-term trends in performance and/or price/cost for new technologies.

Page 20: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Models are Important

• They encourage you to look in certain places

• But if the models are wrong, they encourage you to look

in the wrong places

• The theory of ―dramatic improvements in performance

emerge following emergence of new technology‖

suggests that

– rates of improvement have nothing to do with characteristics

of technology or the science that forms basis of technology

– thus, we can say anything we want about the future

performance of a new technology!

• Particularly if we combine this theory of other theories

Page 21: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

One Combination of Theories

• A low-end innovation will displace the existing technology and become a disruptive innovation because

– learning curve says increases in demand lead to increases in cumulative production and thus reductions in cost

– theory of ―dramatic improvements‖ says these improvements will be initially very rapid, faster than previous technology

• Thus

– a low-end innovation will experience rapid improvements and the low-end innovation will displace the dominant technology

– And thus

• The challenge is to find a low-end innovation

• One that has inferior performance, fewer features, or that is smaller

• Don’t fall into the trap of simple theories that don’t make scientific or engineering sense

Page 22: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Reality is much more complex & interesting

• Certain technologies have the potential for greater improvements in performance and cost than do other technologies

• Understanding why some technologies have more potential than do other technologies is essential for thinking about the future

• These technologies are more likely to displace the dominant technology than are other technologies

• Of course this displacement also depends on the relative importance that users place on price, features, and different dimensions of performance

Page 23: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What Drives these Improvements?

– Existing theories on technological change do not help us

– My approach to technological change (summarized in

forthcoming book from Stanford University Press,

Technology Change and the Rise of New Industries)

• What do these Exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the Future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics, Micro-electronic mechanical systems

– Telecommunications, Lighting and displays, Solar cells

Page 24: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Technology Paradigm

• 1) a technology’s basic concepts or principles and

the tradeoffs that are defined by these concepts

or principles

• 2) the directions of advance within these tradeoffs

where these advances are defined by a

technological trajectory(s)

• 3) the potential limits to these trajectories and

their paradigms

• 4) the roles of components and scientific

knowledge in these limits

Page 25: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Focusing on Direction of

Advance/Technological Trajectory

• 1) improving the efficiency by which basic concepts and

their underlying physical phenomena are exploited (e.g.,

finding materials that better exploit a physical phenomenon)

• 2) radical new processes

• 3) geometric scaling: Some technologies experience

improvements as they are made

– smaller: features on integrated circuits (ICs), storage regions in

magnetic platters or tape

– larger: production and transportation equipment, engines

• 4) improvements in “key” components (ICs) drive

improvements in systems (e.g., computers) even before the

system has been introduced

Page 26: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Directions of Advance/Methods of

Improvement (1)

• Increase efficiencies by which a technology

exploits a physical phenomenon

– Efficiency of engines, etc.

– These improvements often require new materials that

better exploit a physical phenomena

• Batteries

• Lasers

• LEDs

• Lights

• Solar cells

• Transistors

Page 27: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Fig. 2.3. Improvements in Energy Storage Density for Various Technologies Including

Chemical Batteries

Source: Koh and Magee, 2008

Thermal, Propulsive, Overall Efficiencies of Jet Engines

Page 28: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Luminosity per watt of

lights and displays

Organic

Transistors

Page 29: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

For these and other Technologies

• At what rate is efficiency being improved?

• When might these improvements lead to a superior value proposition for – some set of users?

– most users?

• What are the potential/limits (if any) for improvements in efficiency, e.g., can new materials that better exploit a specific physical phenomenon still be found?

• Are there complementary technologies that are needed for these improvements?

• As an aside, what are the policies or strategies that will – promote these improvements?

– help us find and exploit these markets?

Page 30: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What Drives these Improvements?

– Existing theories on technological change do not help us

– My approach to technological change

• Improving the efficiency by which…..

• Geometric scaling

• Improvements in key components

• What do these Exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the Future?

Page 31: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Geometric Scaling (1)

• Definition – refers to relationship between geometry of technology, the scale

of it, and the physical laws that govern it

– “scale effects are permanently embedded in the geometry and the physical nature of the world in which we live” (Lipsey et al, 2005)

• Studied by some engineers (and biologists), but only within their discipline – chemical engineers: chemical plants (many references)

– mechanical engineers: engines, tankers, aircraft (fewer)

– electrical engineers: ICs, magnetic and optical storage (many)

• But very few analyses for engineering in general by either – engineers

– management professors

– economists

Page 32: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Geometric Scaling (2)

• For technologies that benefit from larger scale

– output is roughly proportional to one dimension (e.g., length cubed or volume) more than is the costs (e.g., length squared or area) thus causing output to rise faster than do costs, as the scale of technology is increased

• Examples

– Some types of production equipment, particularly ones used for

• chemicals, basic materials

• semiconductor wafers, LCDs, and solar cells

– Engines

• Steam, internal combustion, and jet engine; also steam turbine

– Transportation equipment

• buses, planes

• oil tankers, freighters

Page 33: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Example of Benefits of Larger Scale: Engines

Diameter of cylinder (D)

Cost of cylinder

or piston is function

of cylinder’s surface

area (πDH)

Output of engine

is function of

cylinder’s

volume (πD2H/4)

Result: output rises

faster than costs as

diameter is increased

Height

of

cylinder

(H)

Page 34: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Geometric Scaling (3)

• For technologies that benefit from smaller scale, the benefits can be particularly large, since

• costs of material, equipment, factory, and transportation typically fall over long term as size is reduced

• but performance of only some technologies such as ICs and magnetic storage experience increases in some aspects of performance as size is reduced

• placing more transistors or magnetic or optical storage regions in a certain area can increase speed and functionality and reduce both power consumption and size of final product

Page 35: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Figure 2. Declining Feature Size

0.001

0.01

0.1

1

10

100

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Year

Mic

rom

ete

rs (

Mic

rons)

Gate Oxide

Thickness

Junction Depth

Feature length

Source: (O'Neil, 2003)

Page 36: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Why do disk drives

experience improvements in

capacity?

What drove these improvements

and in particular which markets

for disk drives drove these

improvements?

Are these large (or small)

improvements in capacity?

How many other products

experience such large

improvements?

Page 37: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

HDD: Hard

Disk Drives

Page 38: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Areal

Recording

Density of

Hard Disks

HDD: Hard

Disk Drives

Page 39: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing change and in

particular exponential improvements?

• What Drives these Improvements?

– Existing theories on technological change do not help us

– My approach to technological change

• Improving the efficiency by which…..

• Geometric scaling

• Improvements in key components

• What do these Exponential Improvements (and

their sources) Tell us about the Future?

Page 40: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Components and Systems (1)

• Some components have a large impact on

performance of a system

• Components that have a large impact on system

performance and are undergoing large

improvements can

– have a large impact on performance and cost of

systems, even before system is implemented

– lead to changes in relative importance of cost and

performance and between various dimensions of

performance

– lead to discontinuities in systems

Page 41: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Components and Systems (2)

• Improvements in engines impacted on

– Locomotives, Ships

– Automobiles, Aircraft

• Improvements in ICs (magnetic platters)

impacted on

– computers, servers, routers, telecommunication

systems and the Internet

– radios, televisions, recording devices, and other

consumer electronics

– mobile phones and other handheld devices

– controls for many mechanical products

– Imaging systems for health care

Page 42: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

For these and other Technologies

• What is the minimum level of performance in a component (such as an IC) that might enable a new electronic system to offer a superior value proposition in for example,

– Gesture and neural-based human-computer interfaces?

– Cognitive radio for mobile phone systems?

– Autonomous vehicles?

• When the concepts and principles that form the basis for a new system are relatively well known, components are often the bottleneck for new systems – This is the case for many technologies

Page 43: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What drives these Improvements?

• What do these exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics

– Micro-electronic mechanical systems (MEMS)

– Telecommunications

– Lighting and displays

– Clean energy

Page 44: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Improvements in ICs (also displays, disk drives)

Make New Kinds of Computers Possible

• Smaller and cheaper computers

– Cheaper tablet computers

– RFID (radio frequency identification) tags

– Networks of smart dust

• New interfaces

– Natural User Interfaces: Speech, touch, gesture

– Neural Interfaces: brain signals measured with electrodes

• New Internet content and applications

– Recognition/authorization systems: fingerprint, facial

recognition, retinal scan, voice recognition

– Surveillance systems

Page 45: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Similar Arguments can be Made for other

Electronic Systems

• Mobile phones and other portable devices

• Servers, routers, and much of the Internet

• Video game consoles (and other simulators)

• Set-top boxes and much of cable TV systems

• Automated algorithmic trading of stocks, etc. by for

example hedge funds

• To some extent, better control over machinery,

production systems, mechanical products

• Autonomous vehicles

• New imaging systems for health care

Page 46: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

But Can Moore’s Law be Sustained?

• Three dimensional ICs may be needed

– 3D wafer level integration concept

– 3D TSV (through silicon via) silicon interposer concept

• Or new forms of transistors/memory cells

– Magnetic random access

– Phase change memory

– Organic transistors and memristers

– Molecular and atomic transistors

Page 47: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What drives these Improvements?

• What do these exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the Future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics

– Micro-electronic mechanical systems (MEMS)

– Telecommunications

– Lighting and displays

– Clean energy

Page 48: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Bio-Electronics Benefit from Reductions in Feature Size

just as ICs have – Expect exponential improvements in them

Page 49: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Benefits of Reductions in Feature Sizes

Higher Resolution

Page 50: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Resolution depends on size of sensor: So reductions in feature size increase performance of bio-electronic chips since they

increase resolution of sensors, decrease amount of fluids, and increase speeds

Page 51: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Reductions in Feature Size Enable Bio-Electronic ICs to

Analyze Smaller Biological Materials

Page 52: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Improvements in Bio-Electronics is Leading to

Improvements in Many Systems

• Point-of-care diagnostics

– analyzing blood and other samples by nurses or patients

• Drug-discovery

– sequence the DNA of for example a target protein

– synthesize drugs that act on such a target

• Drug delivery

• administer drugs to specific places in a person’s body

• nano-particles that destroy cancer cells like a smart bomb

• Chips embedded in

– Clothing or body (e.g., prosthetics or artificial organs)

Page 53: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Just one example: smaller feature sizes drives

reductions in cost of sequencing DNA and Human Genome

Page 54: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What Drives these Improvements?

• What do these Exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the Future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics

– Micro-electronic mechanical systems (MEMS)

– Telecommunications

– Lighting and displays

– Clean energy

Page 56: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Source: Clark Ngyuen, August and September 2011 Berkeley lectures

Page 57: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Source: Clark Ngyuen, August and September 2011 Berkeley lectures

Page 58: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Source: Clark Ngyuen, August and September 2011 Berkeley lectures

Accelerometer

Smaller feature sizes also lead to more mechanical &

electronic components

Page 59: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Evolution of Silicon-Based Photonics in Parallel with

Improvements in Si-Based ICs:

For the most part, both benefit from reductions in scale

Page 60: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Can we make all optical devices on a Silicon Chip?

But we still need a silicon laser!

Page 61: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What drives these Improvements?

• What do these exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the Future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics

– Micro-electronic mechanical systems (MEMS)

– Telecommunications

– Lighting and displays

– Clean energy

Page 62: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Photonics

• Fiber optic telecommunication systems are

primarily made from photonic devices

– Converting signals from electronics (ICs in routers and

servers) to photonics (i.e., light) is becoming bottleneck

– Replacing ICs and IC-based computers with photonics

is difficult without silicon laser

• For computers, as speed of ICs improves,

bottleneck moves to interconnect

– Can we use photonics for first connecting boards and

second for connecting chips on a board?

– Third, use photonics for active elements

Page 63: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

(High Performance Computing Systems)

Flo

atin

g p

oin

t op

era

tion

s p

er s

eco

nd

Page 64: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

ICs and Wireless Systems

• Improvements in ICs are primary drivers of

improvements in wireless systems

• They enabled use of cellular systems and

move from analog to digital and now to

newer digital systems

• They also enable better phones as do

improvements in displays

Page 65: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Source: Bochum and Gonzalez,

Embedded Multicore Processing for

Mobile Communication Systems

Another Way to Look at How Improved

ICs Enable New Systems

Page 66: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Source: The Progress in Wireless Data Transport and its Role in the Evolving Internet, Mario Amaya and Chris Magee

(kilo

bits p

er

secon

d)

Improvements in ICs have been the primary driver of

improvements in wireless speeds

Page 67: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

0.1

1

10

100

1000

10000

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Spee

d (

Mbp

s)

Figure 2.6 Data Rates Over Time for Selected Technologies

Ethernet

USB WPAN

Source: Trend Report from

International Solid State Circuits

WLAN WLAN: Wireless local area networking

WPAN: Wireless personal area

Improvements in ICs have also been the primary driver of

improvements in new types of wireless system (along with

copper-based Ethernet)

Page 68: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Are There Limits to Data Speeds?

• Improvements are limited by Shannon’s Law:

C=B*log(1+S/N)

– C = information capacity (bits per second)

– B = bandwidth; S = signal power; N = noise

• In theory, gamma rays, which oscillate at 1024

Hz, can provide kind of bandwidth that is needed

to continue making improvements

• However, to modulate at this frequency, must

sample waveform at twice that rate and ICs/

MEMS might not be available for many years

– Could a one nanometer mechanical resonator (type of

MEMS) provide 1015 bits per second?

Page 69: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What Drives these Improvements?

• What do these Exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the Future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics

– Micro-electronic mechanical systems (MEMS)

– Telecommunications

– Lighting and displays

– Clean energy

Page 70: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

LEDs already have higher Luminosity per Watt (lm/W) than do fluorescent lights

Source: Lumileds/Philips

Page 71: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) will also soon have

higher luminosities per Watt

Page 72: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

LEDs and OLEDs are also Impacting

on Displays

• LEDs are replacing cold fluorescent tubes as

backlights for LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays)

• OLEDs are starting to replace LCDs

– More vivid colors and cheaper manufacturing processes

– But still shorter life-spans

• In the meantime,

– LCDs continue to get cheaper and better partly because

they benefit from increases in the scale of LCD

substrates and production equipment

– Improvements in frame rate and pixel density make 3D

television more economically feasible

Page 73: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Increases in LCD Substrate Size have led to reductions in cost

Source: www.lcd-tv-reviews.com/pages/fabricating_tft_lcd.php

Page 74: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Larger substrate sizes lead to lower capital costs for LCD

production equipment

Page 75: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Improvements in LCD Frame Rate Increase the

Economic Feasibility of Time Sequential 3D

• Improvement in LCD response

time enable:

– High frame-rate in LCD display

and in active 3D glasses

• Economical

– Estimated cost of adding 3D to

LCD display range from 10% to

30% the cost of panel

– Falling costs from larger substrate

size can offset these higher costs

• But glasses are a big

disadvantage……….

Page 76: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

• Improvements in photolithographic equipment enable

increases in pixel density

– lags resolution in ICs by many years

• improvements of about 4 times

occur every 3 years

• These increases in pixel density enable

– high definition television

– auto-stereoscopic 3D television in which

different pixels are assigned to right and

left eyes and to different “viewing” zones

Increases in Pixel Density Eliminate Need for

Glasses

Page 77: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Outline

• What technologies are experiencing large changes

and in particular exponential improvements?

• What Drives these Improvements?

• What do these Exponential Improvements (and

their sources) tell us about the Future?

– Integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems

– Bio-electronics

– Micro-electronic mechanical systems (MEMS)

– Telecommunications

– Lighting and displays

– Clean energy: solar cells and wind turbines

Page 78: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

0.5

1

1.5

2

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Micro (Poly) Crystalline Silicon

Cost (USD) per Peak Watt of Solar Cells

is Dropping Fast Cadmium Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS – thin film)

Source: Lux Research (2011)

Thin

Film Silicon

Cadmium Telluride (thin film)

Page 79: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Technology Production

Facilities

Labora-

tories

Theoretical

Limits

Three Junction Cell with

Concentrators

25% 42% 63%

Two Junction Amorphous and

Microcrystalline Silicon Cell

22% 32%

Crystalline Silicon 18% 25% 29%

Micro-crystalline silicon 14% 20% 29%

Cadmium-Indium Gallium Selenide

(CIGS)

11% 20% 29%

Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) 11% 17% 29%

Amorphous Silicon 8% 13% 20%

Organic Cells 2% 8% 31%

Dye-Sensitized Cells 12% 31%

One Reason is that Improvements in Efficiencies are Still

Being Made, Particularly to Thin-Film Solar Cells

Page 80: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

A Second Reason is that there are benefits from increasing the scale

of substrates and production equipment, as with LCDs: Expected

benefits from Increases in size of substrate and production Equipment

Source: (Funk, 2012). for Substrate Size: (Signet Solar, 2007)

Technology Substrate

Size

(square

meters)

Current

Equivalent

Generation

of LCD

Equipment

Ratio of

Generation VIII

to Current

Generation in

terms of Capital

Costs Per Area

Expected Cost (USD) per Peak

Watt if Generation VIII was/is

Implemented

In 2011 In 2015

Crystalline

Silicon

5.7 VIII 1.0 $1.27 $0.95

CIGS 0.72 V 0.64 $0.74 $0.51

Cadmium

Teluride (CdTe)

0.72 IV 0.29 $0.20 $0.16

Amorphous

Silicon

1.43 IV 0.29 $0.33 $0.15

Page 81: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Wind Turbines also Benefit from Increases

in Scale

• Theoretical output is a function of

– Turbine-blade-diameter squared

– Wind-speed cubed

• Empirical data shows that

– Cost of wind turbine blade per output falls as diameter

increases

• Particularly for under 50 meters

• Over 50 meters, the benefits from increases in scale fall;

better materials are needed

– Maximum wind speed rises as diameter increases

– Output rises faster than do costs as tower size is

increased

Page 82: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Summary (1)

• Technologies that experience rapid (i.e.,

exponential) improvements in performance and

cost have a large impact on our lives

– they are more likely to become economically feasible

(or to cause systems constructed from them to become

feasible) than are other technologies

• Drivers of exponential improvements

– improving the efficiency by which basic concepts and

their underlying physical phenomena are exploited

(e.g., finding materials that better exploit a physical

phenomenon)

– geometrical scaling

– improvements in components

Page 83: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Summary (2)

• We (including students) can analyze these

improvements to find new technologies that

might be economically feasible in the near future

• For universities, we need to help students

understand when a new technology might be

economically feasible in order for them to

– create new businesses

– understand limitations of proposed solutions to global

problems and come up with better solutions

Page 84: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

Summary (3)

• Students should only develop strategies and

policies for technologies that have a potential to

become economically feasible for some if not

many users

• Appropriate strategies and policies also depend

on the way in which the technology is

experiencing improvements in performance and

cost

Page 85: Exponential change: what drives it? what does it tell us about the future?

For more information

• These slides summarize ideas that are

– described in a forthcoming book from Stanford University

Press entitled ―Technology Change and the Rise of New

Industries‖

– used in a course entitled ―Analyzing Hi-Tech Opportunities‖

• Complementary slides can be found on slideshare

– http://www.slideshare.net/Funk98/presentations

– http://www.slideshare.net/funk97/presentations