(Invited) Thin Film Technologies : The Key Approach for the Decrease of Energy Consumption of the Digital World

Since 2000, the increased possibility of nomadizing objects via the Internet of Things has spread to all sectors of society. This field initially experienced exponential growth, which is currently accelerating with the arrival of new applications such as cloud storage or artificial intelligence. All the associated electronics-based equipment needs to be supplied with electrical power. Transparency on the user's side overshadows the real energy consumption, which is growing exponentially, that is not physically acceptable in the long term. After summarizing the background to the challenges of the digital world, this paper examines various proposals for improving electronics, both technologically and architecturally, involving transistors, devices and thin-film circuits. These include stacking techniques, the introduction of wide-bandgap semiconductors, new flexible technologies, and new circuits based on analog and asynchronous approaches. An obvious resulting need concerns human resources with new skills, to which this document pays particular attention in the final section.