Strengths and threats of pervasive information technologies: effect on engineering higher education

The emergence of information technology has changed our habits and approaches, both professionally and in terms of our individual and societal lives. The presence of the Internet and connected objects is multiplying at very high speed. They apply to all sectors of activity of our societies. This evolution has been made possible thanks to the continuous improvement of microelectronic technologies which constitute the physical support of all the objects concerned that create, process, transmit and store signals and data. The consequences are numerous, including the opening up of the microelectronics discipline towards application fields, the emergence of new major challenges linked on the one hand to the power consumption of systems that process more and more data, and on the other hand to the need for human skills capable of meeting technical and technological challenges. This article thus presents the various facets of the diffusion of technologies to other fields, which constitute an appreciable strength, but also the threats to be overcome, related to limitations and challenges.