April 20, 2024
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Industry Outlook 2005
Technology
Gina Edwards | 1/1/2005
HARDWARE: Small World
Florida's microelectronics industry will experience dramatic change this year because of the growing interest in nanotechnology by Florida's universities, says Michael Kovac, director of the Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Center at the University of South Florida. Also, watch for a repositioning of Florida's semiconductor industry sparked by the sale of Agere Systems' wafer manufacturing plant in Orlando. (The company announced in September that it would close the plant by December if it couldn't find a buyer.) "Depending on who comes in there and takes over, we could see dramatic changes in the high-tech corridor," Kovac says.
2005 Forecast: Edward Ellegood, director of policy and program development for the Florida Space Research Institute, says Florida needs to position itself to meet the needs of the commercial space industry or it will increasingly lose out to other states in areas like space tourism and commercial satellite launches. "The cape has become an overly complex place for launch programs," Ellegood says. "It simply isn't competitive anymore." Watch for the Florida Legislature to take an interest in the subject in 2005, Ellegood says.
