A “futurist” reveals his predictions about the industry of tomorrow.
Predicting what will happen just one year from now is dicey, but Dr. Ken Gilleo has made it his life’s work to imagine what the electronics industry will look like in 50 years. Gilleo is CEO of ET-Trends LLC in Warwick, R.I., and he calls himself a general technologist and futurist. He’s teaching himself and others to predict future paradigm shifts to help the industry take advantage of emerging opportunities and smartly face future challenges. Here, Gilleo explains the lessons he’s learned.
Q. Your curriculum vitae says you’re a “general technologist.” What does that mean?
A. You start out being very curious, and once you get into things, you can’t help yourself. As you move through your career, you get interested in adjacent technologies. That curiosity drives you to understand the principles of another discipline. You may end up having few areas of expertise, but you’ve got enough general knowledge that you can point people in a general direction.
Q. What are you working on now?
A. My specific goal is to get the packaging industry to use materials and systems that other industries use. The electronics industry still refuses to look at other industries because they’re low-tech. We say, “We’re at the top. We’re the smartest people. We don’t want to look below us.” But look around you. There are a lot of great ideas in other industries.
Q. You talk about the joy of technology. What do you mean?
A. Technology should be exciting. You have a fantastic amount of leverage because you get to see how things work and how to change them to help bring out new products. There’s also the joy of figuring things out. I’ve seen students looking at something, and when they get it, there’s that “Ahhh!” They’re really excited. There are countless joys in technology that you can’t find anywhere else.
Q. You serve as an expert in patent litigation. What has that taught you?
A. The really rude awakening has been that it’s very humbling to be involved in patent litigation. You think of yourself as a good inventor, but you realize there are a lot of good inventors, and some are better that you. As you look at patents, it’s shocking to realize that some ideas were thought up way before you were around. You also realize that if you’re going to be really good at what you do, you have to understand that your first idea is probably good, but somewhere in there, there’s probably a better idea. You have to keep digging for it.
Q. What advice would you give to other engineers?
A. Network, network, network. Be a genuine friend, and be willing to help people. You’ll make friends and force yourself to become much broader in your knowledge so that if you go off on your own, people will want to help you. Also, help startups and students. Some engineers think startups and students don’t have money and won’t buy anything. But someday they’ll have money.
Q. What major changes has the industry seen during your career?
A. The big surprise is that there haven’t been big surprises. I was fortunate to watch the switch from vacuum tubes to transistors, and in my mind, that was the only revolution. We make things a little better every year, yet the changes have been evolutionary rather than revolutionary. You have to wait one lifetime for a big breakthrough like the transistor, and I hope I live long enough to see one more big one.
Q. What technology changes will the industry see in the future?
A. Things will get really exciting in the next decade. We’ll probably see the use of light as the link between chips on circuit boards, and within 20 years, we’ll see the photonic computer. Also, we’re still in the telecom revolution that started with Guglielmo Marconi 100 years ago. We’re making telecom so efficient that it’s becoming pervasive, and that revolution will continue. The computer was the marketing driver 10 years ago, but telecom has become the driver for packaging. That will be the case for five to 10 years. Another is microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). While important today, MEMS will be really exciting in 10 years, and it’ll move into other areas like the medical industry.
Q. What will the electronic packaging industry look like in the future?
A. We’ve been spoiled because we had to deal only with electrons. They’re somewhat easy to package because you can put goop on top and it doesn’t hurt them. With an optical system, you can’t cover it with goop. You need light to go in and out of the package. As MEMS expands, instead of electrical connections, we’ll have to deal with photons and fluids, and we’ll have to design packaging that can handle the mechanical and photonic systems. We’ll have to build a circuit board that can handle real fluids and be more than electron “plumber.”
Q. What challenges will the industry face?
A. The biggest challenge may not be technical. Now we’re able to move the product and machines almost anywhere in the world, but how do we move the experience? Where do you find somebody with 20 to 30 years experience who wants to try something new and move overseas for 10 years?
Q. What environmental innovations do you see in the future?
A. Some people rant and rage against regulators. That’s the wrong approach. I’d like to see us use friendly chemical elements and more biomaterials. You can make plastics from corn, rice and other crops. You can grow the materials, and you’ll have an easier time convincing regulators they’re not harmful. The model T Ford ran on ethanol and was constructed with many natural materials.
