AI, heterogeneous integration, silicon photonics, chiplets, and quantum computing are converging to define the next generation of complex systems.
For decades, semiconductor progress followed a familiar formula: shrink transistors, pack more of them onto a chip, and let Moore’s Law deliver the next generation of computing performance. That model remains important, but at imec’s ITF World 2026 conference in Antwerp, a different message emerged. The industry’s future may depend less on individual technologies and more on how they are integrated into increasingly complex systems.
AI is exposing bottlenecks that transistor scaling alone cannot solve. Compute performance now depends as much on memory bandwidth, interconnect efficiency, power delivery, thermal management, packaging, and software as it does on advances in logic. As a result, the semiconductor industry is beginning to rethink where scaling happens and how innovation is organized.
Across six articles, EE Times examines the major themes that emerged from ITF World 2026. In an exclusive interview, imec CEO Patrick Vandenameele argues that future progress will require deep co-optimization across the entire computing stack, bringing AI architects, chip designers, equipment suppliers, and system developers into closer collaboration. From there, the series explores how Europe is positioning itself in a chiplet-driven world, why heterogeneous large-scale integration may become the successor to the traditional system-on-chip paradigm, and how CMOS 2.0 could push scaling deeper into the circuit itself through advanced 3D integration.
The package also examines one of AI’s most pressing challenges: moving data efficiently. Imec researchers describe a future in which optics moves ever closer to the processor, evolving from co-packaged optics to 2.5D and eventually 3D optical I/O. Finally, the series looks beyond AI to quantum computing, where advanced semiconductor manufacturing techniques are beginning to transform laboratory experiments into scalable, manufacturable systems.
Taken together, these developments point toward a common conclusion. The semiconductor industry’s next chapter will not be defined by a single breakthrough technology. It will be shaped by the ability to integrate compute, memory, photonics, packaging, power delivery, and quantum technologies into coherent systems that can scale economically, efficiently, and sustainably.
https://www.eetimes.com/itf-world-2026-the-semiconductor-industry-enters-a-new-systems-era/
