Every year, media outlets publish year-end reviews and outlooks for the New Year. Solid State Technology, a leading magazine providing the latest electronics manufacturing news, analysis and product information related to semiconductor manufacturing features an annual outlook and invited Randhir Thakur, Executive Vice President, General Manager, Silicon Systems Group, Applied Materials to give his assessment of the major trends for 2014. He identified the shifts to 20 nanometer designs, FinFET transistors and 3D NAND as the game-changing innovations and discussed how Applied is focused on providing the precision materials engineering solutions to address the challenges involved in advancing these technologies.