As the growth in consumer electronics shifts from the PC to wireless devices, the next killer app could well be the porting of voice communications to the Internet. Although users could experience some degradation in voice quality carried over the Internet Protocol compared with cell phones and land lines, the growing frustration with excessive roaming charges for users on the move could easily outweigh those concerns. The added benefit of voice capabilities concurrent with data transmission would also enable wireless shoppers to interact with vendors through PDAs, helping to overcome the limitations to mobile commerce inherent in small screens. Securing wireless communications Paul Lesso, PhD RF Design , October 1, 2001. Such a security breach is a wake-up call to the wireless industry to implement effective secret communications.
Cryptography is an ideal candidate.
Richard Illman Wireless System Design , October, 2001. This prediction has been viewed as almost apocalyptic in its implications. The alternative viewpoint is that this is simply the natural continuation of a trend that has existed throughout the history of IC development. As device sizes shrink, more gates can be fitted onto the same size die, driving down the device cost. However, the smaller transistor sizes make the possible fault mechanisms more complex and higher gate counts make individual gates more difficult to access.