Using factor analysis to develop verification process of IT emerging technologies

For advancement of emerging technologies, financial and human resources have been invested for a few decades as the technologies become more important to ensure a nation to stay competitive in the world market. However, if emerging technologies do not develop despite huge investment, it would cause a huge national loss. Therefore, it is necessary to predict future of the emerging technology for reduction of the loss. Furthermore, it is more important that the growth potential of the predicted technologies and the appropriateness of the prediction method are evaluated. This study proposes to develop a verification process to evaluate the technology against prioritizing of the technology predicted in past using factor analysis because decision making related to investment for the technology is demanded. The prioritizing is the result obtained through AHP analysis as a part of the 2003 Prioritization and Selection project that was carried out in South Korea in 2003. In the verification process, clustering method is also used to consider the change of technology after time flow. We focused only on the field of electronic device technology in order to enhance the immediate and practical applicability of our study.