Abstract:
Electronics, communications and computing had a dramatic impact on the development of
humankind during the last decades that now affects almost every aspect of our daily life. It can be
foreseen that this influence will become even more important in the future resulting in new societal
challenges including a strongly increasing energy consumption and environmental pollution. Here
we illustrate that the huge progress in electronics, communications and computing was mainly
driven by corresponding developments in nanotechnology and new materials, which proved to be a
key enabling technology.