Embedded Systems Design Europe - April 2008 - (Page 8)

news iSuppli cuts electronic equipment forecast Amid a major slowdown, iSuppli Corp. has cut its separate chip and electronic equipment forecasts for 2008. Not all are in agreement, especially Europeanbased Future Horizons. Worldwide OEM revenue for all types of electronic equipment is expected to grow 5.9 percent in 2008, down from 7 percent in 2007. iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.) previously predicted 6.6 percent growth in 2008. This will impact semiconductor sales, which now are expected to rise only 4 percent to reach $279.6 billion in 2008, up from $268.9 billion in 2007. iSuppli’s previous semiconductor forecast called for 7.5 percent revenue growth in 2008. “Revenue growth in each electronic equipment segment is being impacted by a variety of speciﬁc factors. However, the macroeconomic impact of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis is the underpinning of the market slowdown,” said Gary Grandbois, principal analyst with iSuppli. “The global electronic equipment market has posted ﬁve strong years of growth in a row. But weakness in some application markets coupled with a slowing trend in global economic conditions, led by a U.S. slump, dim the prospects for strong equipment growth in 2008,” he said. Five of the six major segments of the global electronic equipment business – computers, industrial equipment, automotive gear and wired and wireless communications – are expected to see lower growth. The biggest single area of slowdown in 2008 for electronic equipment will be in wired communications gear. Revenue growth in this area will hit 3.6 percent in 2008, a reduction from the 13 percent expansion in 2007. “Spending in 2007 was driven by the rise of metro and long-haul network upgrades by global telco providers. However, in 2008, spending on equipment for those deployments has largely been completed and growth has slowed substantially,” according to iSuppli. Wireless equipment, which includes handsets, will experience the next biggest slowdown with growth of 8.2 percent in 2008. This is down from 11.1 percent in 2007. “While unit growth for mobile handsets is expected to be healthy, falling average selling prices (ASPs) for older 2G mobile handsets will restrain revenue growth in the global handset market,” according to iSuppli. “This will cause global semiconductor revenue growth for wireless semiconductors to slow to 1.6 percent in 2008, down from 2.4 percent in 2007.” The computer segment will experience a relatively mild slowdown in 2008, with global equipment revenue rising by 8.6 percent for the year, down from 9.6 percent in 2007. “Conditions will be much brighter in the PC-oriented semiconductor segment, with global revenue growth of 5.3 percent, compared to a 0.9 percent rise in 2007. The cessation of a price war between Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. means that ASPs for PC microprocessors will hold relatively steady in 2008, helping the semiconductor segment to grow faster,” according to iSuppli. Others have a different viewpoint. Fear of a U.S. recession combined with bad news in the ﬁnancial markets is making the chip market jittery, according to Future Horizons’ CEO and chairman Malcolm Penn. But he believes the underlying fundamentals are strong. “Rising ASPs will trigger a market recovery,” said Penn in a statement. ‘’If it does not occur in 2008 then it will be 2009, however, it is far too early to write off 2008.” He believes that it is far too early in the 2008 cycle to start slashing forecasts. “Our forecast of 12 percent market growth is predicated on a 4 percent decline in the ﬁrst quarter of 2008 versus the last quarter of 2007, followed by a ﬂat second quarter and a strong second-half rebound. If Q1 is more negative, the 12 percent number will fall, but if the second half is stronger, 12 percent is in the bag. It is far too early to say which way the wind blows.” Study says GigE Vision not mature In the discussion about future standards in machine vision applications, Sony has backed up its skeptical attitude against Gigabit Ethernet Vision, a data transmission technology favored by parts of the industry. Sony justiﬁes its skepticism with an study conducted by Fraunhofer Institut for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS). While GigE Vision, a derivative of the Gigabit Ethernet data communications standard, offers several beneﬁts, under the bottom line Sony’s favorite standard IIDC (Instrumentation and Digital Camera) over IEEE 1394b (FireWire) offers better performance and predictability, explained a Sony spokesperson. According to the Fraunhofer study, GigE Vision lacks QoS guarantees and 8 thus is less appropriate for the transmission of real-time data. In addition, GigE Vision produces more CPU load than its competitor, the study ﬁnds. In addition, IEE 1394b and IIDS allow integrators to work via a high-level API whereas GigE Vision requires the designer to actively deal with low-level integration tasks such as setting data packet size. As a result, GigE Vision hardware is more difﬁcult to integrate and exhibits restricted operability, the study says. In addition, the Fraunhofer researchers conclude, the GigE Vision standard is offering great theoretical promises for machine vision applications, but since it is still evolving, reallife [GigE Vision] systems “may not deliver all of the beneﬁts and performance enhancements designers expect.” APRIL 2008 | embedded systems design europe | www.embedded.com/europe 008_ESDE.indd 8 10/04/08 14:04:25 http://www.embedded.com/europe

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Embedded Systems Design Europe - April 2008

Embedded Systems Design Europe - April 2008 Contents Chip Industry Confronts 'Software' Gap Wind River's VxWorks OS Part of the nEUROn UCAV Demonstrator iSuppli Cuts Electronic Equipment Forecast Study Says GigE Vision Not Mature Chip Aids Wireless Health Monitoring Kontron Reports Strong Financial Growth Xilinx Completes Virtex-5 Line-Up French Project Builds Open Platform Home Automation Group Uses Enocean Radio Layer MIPs Adds Multi-Core Option to Portfolio Cover Feature: Next Gen Programmable Chips: Why Can't Hardware Be More Like Software? Improving Productivity & Quality With Domain-Specific Modeling Efficient CRC Calculation With Minimal Memory Footprint Do-It-Yourself Linux Embedded Development Tools Hardware/Software Verification Enters the Atomic Age New Products Advertising Contacts

Embedded Systems Design Europe - April 2008

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