The Sensing Eco-System
(Room Executive Ballroom C)
22 Jun 16
10:20 AM
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11:00 AM
The sensor industry has experienced tremendous growth in the past 5 years, driven primarily by the inclusion of motion tracking devices, among a variety of MEMS-based sensors, in mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices. Growth is expected to accelerate as this Internet of Things (IoT) proliferates enabling the cloud to connect with, and sense, the ambient world. The IoT promises a new economy built on services created by analyzing the data collected from up to 1 trillion smart, sensing “things”. An inherent assumption is that because silicon integrated circuits (ICs) are small, low cost, power efficient, and reliable, MEMS sensors can be the same – after all MEMS are built from the same materials and processes in the same factories as ICs. But a mechanical transducer must interact with the physical world it is sensing and it is this simple principle that forces a significantly different approach to creating reliable systems. Those who intend to profit from the new economy must realize that unless those rewards are returned to the roots of the data, to the system and component creators, innovation will stop and technology will plateau before the true potential of the IoT is realized. The internet of things, poised to be the next layer on the internet, must be an eco-system created to benefit all whom it touches, from the supply chain, to the users, to the financiers, to the very planet that it covers.