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TSM is the originator of the foundry model in semis and Wuxiapptec is the founder or the combined foundry and Contract Research Organiztion in the bio industry. They are both intensely involved in semis, mems and manipulating materials on a nano scale. Medical will be the top market for semis in a seven trillion dollar global market that's growing fast as the population grows, becomes wealthy with a rapidly increasing age. WX actually does not only traditional foundry work, but performs raw research for customers with their labs doing customer specified experiments on a contract basis. They can take medical projects from raw research to finished product and actually do drug/device trails for world regulatory bodies. I feel there is a strong possibility we will see a chain of Kaiser/Apple/TSM/WX (all links have been publicly disclosed in some form) with numerous support companies in an effort to radically alter how business in the medical field and bring it more. I feel EDA type programs will be applied to raw research in both bio and semis in the near future. Comments, especially for EDA professionals appreciated on this one.
Sure, the CRO industry is growing and the low labor cost of china is an advantage. but now we'e starting to see some biomed research done at the cloud using robots, by some american startup companies. So we'll see how the sector develops.
ippisl, I have written previously about medical research robots and one has already made a discovery. I think robots both in hardware, software and the two combined will take over more and more tasks in research and everyday life. Craig Venter massively automated medical research in being the first to decode the genetics for humans and both hardware and software in combination have made the automated car a every day reality within reach. Raw research done by software has already been around for a while and combining it with physical robotics is well on the way. But robots (hardware and software) will be just an extension of our power, not a replacement.
pmehra, Thank you for the information on Oxford Nanopore, this is a major new area for the semi/mems field and the fastest area of future growth for the semi and device industry.
>> But robots (hardware and software) will be just an extension of our power, not a replacement.
That is about to change in a decade or two tops , i think. For examples, the models in biology are becoming too complex for us to understand, and on the other hand recently a software algorithm understood and solved a biological problem that alluded humans for 100 years. So it's not just dumb robotics - but actually very smart ones.
ippisl, I agree with you to a great degree. It is the automation of everything I wrote about earlier and this applies to both software, hardware and the two combined. If we aren't careful cyborgs could become the other race on this planet and maybe even the ruling one if we are not careful. We have already made a man made life form by over laying a man designed genetic code over an existing one and recently got it to reproduce. Craig Venter is the leading figure in this area.
Arthur , from what i see nobody is investing much in building cyborgs with self goals etc. There's simply no need. The only one place group that might do so is armies, but of course we don't know.
Personally i think the main issues would be if we could share the extreme wealth we'll have , in a world without work, or whether the capitalistic system that isn't built for sharing resources and power - will create a lot of social problems.
Arthur , from what i see nobody is investing much in building cyborgs with self goals etc. There's simply no need. The only one place group that might do so is armies, but of course we don't know.
And even there I don't think they will ever develop cyborgs not adhering to the strict hierarchical military organization. I myself am not worried as I think cyborgs will only be there if it improves our live as now the digital wearables are already taking over part of our planning and decision making.
When I talk about cyborgs, I'm not thinking about the science fiction kind, but people augmenting and improving their functions and prolonging life with active artificial man made devices both of bio and electronic constructs. We already have this with pace makers, implanted MEMs retinas and hearing sensors. In the future these could become an option for improving what we have. These will be just the first wave of what is possible and there is much in the labs that we will soon hear about.
We already have Cyborgs and have for a while in people who have implanted devices like pace makers, hearing devices and many more things. Soon as things progress people will have the option of greatly improving functions with custom designed organs lab grown and numerous electronic and mechanical devices. Just like plastic surgery implants that are so popular, these devices as the improve in variety, function an performance demand will increase dramatically. Trust me, it's human nature. If you have any doubt, look at the dollars that change hands at any high end cosmetics counter or plastic surgery center.
