The WEAF Mnecosystem: A Perspective of MEMS/NEMS Technologies as Pillars of Future 6G, Super-IoT and Tactile Internet

The future 6G, Super-IoT (Internet of Things) and Tactile Internet (TI) scenarios pose challenges and demand for requirements that are far beyond what the 5G – today at its dawn – will ever achieve. The classical approaches in designing devices, systems and infrastructures will not be suitable to build the AI-driven (Artificial Intelligence) 6G network. This work envisages a critical part for Microtechnologies and Nanotechnologies (MEMS/NEMS) in making 6G turn into reality. Such a leading role sits on a reformulation of the common concept of Hardware (HW) triggered by Micro and Nanotechnologies and Materials. To this end, the WEAF Mnecosystem, i.e. the Water, Earth, Air and Fire Micro/Nanotechnologies Ecosystem, is conceived, leveraging the analogy with the four classical elements in nature, and is explained in details in the following pages, along with the discussion of some reference examples. In a nutshell, Earth and Air are the classical concepts of HW and SW, respectively. Water is the novel formulation of the concept of HW, which, like water, is liquid in terms of functional characteristics and gains, at the same time, some features typical of the SW (i.e. Air). Fire, eventually, is the HW devoted to harvest, store and transfer energy, raising its level of abstraction to the concept of heat, which flows from warmer to cooler bodies.