Which areas of EE do you think will grow the fastest over the next 5-10 years

[astonmartin]

Just wanted to get people's thoughts on which fields of EE will have the most innovations/breakthroughs in the next few years.

 

[Kholdstare]

Its not that easy to say. I am much more exposed to microelectronics. Thus I am mostly interested in that field. However, I am sure other fields are doing well too.

 

[everitt]

May I attempt to answer the Question with a further question, or two? So many questions..

If it is reasonable to argue that A.C. conductive efficiency (and by inference, EM inductive efficiency in the greater context of an extended circuit in which conductive efficiency is less than optimal) may be enhanced by generating a specific form of A.C. wave--or Voltage and Current waveforms-- of optimal conductive characteristics or configuration, that is, optimally capable of propagation over the extended circuit..., then would it be further reasonable to suggest that a system of Continuous Induction--say in a Continuous Induction Turbine-- in which by virtue of a particular type of magnetic core upon which a single continuous armature is wound in a specific configuration, driven rotationally within an external field, all parts of the winding are exposed continuously to some EM inductive influence at all times, may provide such an enhancement of wave propagation properties should all components of such inductive effect and induction resultant be capable of integration (simply as the function of the intrinsic design and configuration of the turbine) into a Single Phase A.C. Wave of hypothetically optimal form?..

 

[Carl Pugh]

There no doubt about it, the fastest growing area will be in the electronic control of automobiles. Consider how many hours/day you waste driving when you could be watching TV. OPPS that's not a good example.

 

[turbo]

Carl's suggestion is a good one, though. People are dazzled by in-dash GPS/touch-screen computers, etc, and I don't see that letting up any time soon. Automotive electronics might not be a long-lived career, but it could be hot for another decade or so.

 

[M Quack]

My bets are:

(1) home power from solar, wind etc and feeding the power back to the net.
(2) automotive, hybrid (!) and fully electric cars. Hybrids need to evolve an alternative to fossile fuel internal combustion, e.g. fuel cells. The power density stored chemically is WAY higher than any battery imaginable, so chemical energy sources will stay with us for some time. Alternatives to the classical car will be important, from electrically assited bicycles to micro-cars to whatever.
(3) microcontollers and embedded computing will continue to grow and eventually replace home computing as we know it today. Alternatives to the keyboard and mouse will play a big role in that. Smart phones will turn into wrist watches. Displays for such devices are a challenge. Holography? Roll-up or foldable displays?
(4) The brain-electronics interface and bioelectronics in general will see huge developments. Eventually all interactions with computers will happen through an implanted chip and some kind of wireless data transfer.
(5) there is loads of gains possible in parallel computing. The current trend with GPU is not even scratching the surface of it. Auto-configuring FPGAs will turn up at some point.