Everyone who is at least somehow interested in microelectronics (or nanoelectronics) has heard that specialists in this field operate with nanometers. A nanometer is a measure of length, more precisely 1 meter divided by 1000000000. For comparison, the diameter of a human hair is from approximately 1 meter divided by 10000.

The main building block of a microcircuit is a transistor. A transistor is an active element of an electrical circuit that helps to remember, calculate, and so on. Semiconductor manufacturers say something like we use 10nm technology. What does it mean? Does this mean that the size of transistors has reached several tens of nanometers?

The x-nanometer technology means that not the transistor itself, but only part of it, has such dimensions. Traditionally, the channel was measured. A channel is an active region in which current flows (if the transistor is open) or no current flows (if the transistor is closed). However, today, when we read the headlines about the introduction of 5nm technology, it is no longer just a channel. It may be some other length that marketers considered necessary to measure. We do not name famous companies. But if you take a closer look, the performance of 22 nm technologies will not differ from that of competitors’ 10 nm technologies.

Future

There are two development paths. The first way is to leave traditional technologies. For example, an analog-to-digital converter in a charger does not require super nanometer technology. Much of the electronics will function on a large scale.

The second way is the search for new physical principles of functioning. For example, the elements of memory dare one technology to another. Yesterday, the main principle of operation was the magnetoresistive effect. Today, modern memory uses magnetic tunnel junctions with various types of switching from logical one to logical zero.

Spin-polarized current or spin-orbit torque effect are all new phenomena that have already been introduced into production. These are quantum mechanical phenomena that make it possible to increase the efficiency of the crystal square.

This arms race is taking place between scientific centers. One of the main research direction is technological process. For example, a microcircuit is drawn using radiation through special templates. There is a size limit that can be drawn.

Materials is another area that is actively developing. Silicon is the main material of the electronic world. Analogues are selected, but they are either expensive or have disadvantages that cannot yet be overcome. For example, the some necessary physical phenomena can only be observed at low temperatures (below room temperature). This hinders development.

A completely different non-tech battle is going on between marketing departments. This is where headlines win. And while this battle is the most effective. The costs of new technologies are gigantic, and the creative ideas of marketing specialists are much cheaper.

by Andiy Domane

CounselSenses

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Note that the following analysis is based on the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) data. Notably, it derives from ICAOs monthly Air Transport Monthly Monitor (recent issues can be accessed here). The most recent data in the November 2021 report is for September 2021. Furthermore, developments in most metrics are compared to 2019 levels, which is before the pandemic started.

The Slow Recovery Continues

After the deepest fall seen in April 2020 passenger air travel has been recovering for almost one year and a half. Although uneven at times – interrupted by several bouts of the COVID-19 new strains in February 2021 and in August 2021 – the recuperation of the airline industry has been quite clear. It can be discerned in both major metrics which has been growing fairly steadily since April 2020:

• passenger traffic;
• aircraft capacity available for passengers.

Aircraft Loading Growth Uneven

The developments in terms of the load factor have been less positive. Earlier there were fears about returning aircraft back available for travel. Nevertheless, as said above, it has been making quite steady progress. At the same time, demand from the public has not been growing as quickly as it had been forecast by the airlines before. So in recent months – August and September 2021 – the load factor has been falling. However, the decline has been insignificant, and this trend can be expected to reverse and loading to return to growth soon.

Only National Travel Oriented Airports Have Recovered

In terms of airport traffic (only the top world airports were analyzed):

• plane departures growth vs. 2019 could only be seen only in two US airports in Phoenix and Salt Lake City – basically, air travel only at the national level;
• in terms of passengers, all the major airports have shown a decline and have still not recovered from the pandemic influence.

In conclusion, the major trends are showing there the airline industry is slowly but steadily recovering with mild interruptions from the new COVID-19 strains. Passenger air travel is expected to reach the pre-pandemic levels sometime in the middle of next of next year in all passenger traffic, aircraft capacity, and the load factor.

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Russia is the current leader in the run for Arctic, as it place a high priority of its far-north territories, which is no surprise, given its geography. As of 2021, Russian arctic fleet consists of multiple nuclear vessels, two of which can be considered heavy. Also, the new Arctic icebreaker “Arktika” has began operations in 2020. Arktika is capable to cross 2.9 meter of arctic ice. It’s expected that four new icebreakers of the same generation will be commissioned by 2030. The new Arktika generation are capable of navigation on both sea and rivers.

Russia, along with other northern powers like Canada ans Sweden, has their own Arctic ice-capable commercial fleet, which are must for actual icebreakers. The extraction of natural gas in the Arctic, combined with the growth of liquefied natural gas market, incentivizes the development of ice-capable liquefied natural gas carriers.

It’s no surprise that other global powers are starting to pay attention to Arctic, too. China, despite their geography, already has their own Arctic Policy, which was created as a set of goals which would help to increase their influence in the region. Currently, Chinese icebreaker fleet is rather small, consisting with only 2 ships. However, China, in close cooperation with Russian companies, already starts to build ice-capable liquefied natural gas carriers. Considering the speed of shipbuilding that China is capable of, the current state of Chinese Arctic fleet shouldn’t give the wrong idea about its future potential.

Seeing the ever-increasing cooperation of China and Russia in the Arctic, the United States has joined the affair as well. As a result, USA have plans to expand their small Arctic fleet with six new icebreakers, and so are their Asian allies, including South Korea and Japan, which are also capable of building icebreakers to try and catch the new opportunity in the market.

The new opportunities of Arctic are coming not only from new trade routes, but from undiscovered natural resources as well. For example, it’s estimated that Arctic might hold about 33% of all currently unknown natural gas reserves, as well as 1/8 of oil reserves). Current crisis may slow down the development projects in the area, but it probably wouldn’t stop it for good, specially since there’s a global shift towards clean energy. Of course, natural gas is still fossil fuel, but it’s much “cleaner” that coal or oil, so the demand is likely to grow in coming years.

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According to estimates, digitalization can allow oil companies to increase crude output by 2-7% while reducing operating costs by 25%. This way, about 125 billion barrels of oil can be positively affected just by digital improvement of work organization on already discovered fields. It’s no surprise that 1/3rd of Oil and Gas companies have already invested in Big Data, while another 1/3rd are planning to do so in coming years.

The end effect on global GDP is also formidable. It’s estimated that world GDP can grow by 0.8% just with the help of digitalization in oil and gas industry by 2025. Wood Mackenzie estimates the effect of digitalization at 40% of the NPV on the 10 largest petroleum recovery projects.

Experts say that digital technologies can make up for about 40% of the NPV for largest petroleum recovery projects. Overall, digitalization in Oil and Gas industry can generate about $640 billion, 65% of which comes from lowering emissions, 25% comes in form of consumer’s savings, 10% leaves to various improvements in production and resource consumption. Lowering emissions means reduction by 1,3 billion tonnes of CO2, 0,8 billions of water and prevention oil spills for about 200 thousands barrels of oil.

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This movement is getting approved by governments around the world, especially in Europe and USA, as they’re approving numerous laws to reduce CO2 emissions. Not just that, manufacturers like Tesla who started from nothing a few years back are now one of the most valued companies in the industry. Tesla’s market value has skyrocketed over the past few years and it easily beats the likes of Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Jeep, BMW, and the Volkswagen Group.

Aforementioned companies are also shifting to electric vehicles. Manufacturers like Jeep have already told that they will electrify their entire SUV lineup with electric power by 2022. Another example – Ford Motor Company, one of the iconic and popular American manufacturers has already started introducing various models which are all-electric vehicles.

The main concern over buying an electric vehicle was regarding the range and reliability. But in the past few years, manufacturers have started to pack quite big batteries in their cars giving them a great amount of range. This combined with the vast amounts of charging stations all over the United States means that unlike before owning an electric vehicle now will be a fuss-free experience. Reliability concerns have also have reduced and in fact, it is the electric vehicles that have the least moving parts thus ultimately reducing the number of possible issues.

However, shift to electric cars won’t be easy. Taking Britain as ane example, there were 2.3 million new cars registered in Britain in 2019, but only 37,850 were battery powered – or 1.6%. Still, sales have risen rapidly this year, partly due to strict new emissions rules in the EU which have forced manufacturers to invest billions in new zero-emission models. As a result electric cars have become better, but they remain expensive to make and rely heavily on incentives to sell.

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