Embedded Systems Design - Europe - August/September 2007 - (Page 13)

market study My current embedded project is: 39% New to the world; a new project from scratch 44% 48% An upgrade or improvement to an earlier or existing project 61% 56% 52% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Figure 1 2007 (N = 998) 2006 (N = 1,186) 2005 (N = 1,625) What does the upgrade or improvement include? New or different software features New or different processor New or different system logic New or different analog components New or different operating system Mandatory changes because of discontinued hardware or software 0% Figure 2 10% 20% 32% 36% 32% 29% 28% 27% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 41% 47% 56% 54% 79% 75% 2006 (N = 629) 2007 (N = 663) Base = Current project is an upgrade/improvement Are you considering using embedded Linux? 21% Yes, using it now 17% 24% Yes, likely to use it in the next 6 months (soon) 6% 17% 17% 25% 32% 32% 48% No, not interested in using it 27% Figure 3 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 34% Total Linux consideration: 2007 = 52% 2006 = 66% 2005 = 73% fascinating. Contact me directly (rnass@ cmp.com) if you’d like to get more information about the complete study. The real beauty of the study comes from the fact that we’ve done a nearly identical study for a number of years, and we can show the trends, the evolutions, the end-of-lifes, and so on. That year-onyear data can be very interesting. Here’s one remarkable stat: from 2005 to 2007, the number of new projects fell from 48 percent to 39 percent, as Figure 1 shows. This drop is offset nearly equally by a rise in improvements and maintenance. What does that say? Could it be that the projects are so complex that they require more maintenance than in the past? Or are those designs better than previous models, hence living longer lives? In my opinion, it’s a combination of those two functions, with the latter being more signiﬁcant as the cost of producing a new product rises signiﬁcantly. But it’s obvious that it takes longer to program each new generation of processor, simply because more functions are available to the developer. More code means more test, so the each phase of design takes incrementally longer. To get a reality check on this question, I contacted Contributing Editor Michael Barr. Barr suspects that designers have changed how they deﬁne “new.” “It used to be that if you added Internet connectivity to your project, but it still did the same thing otherwise, people characterized it as new. Now, everyone that wants an Internet connection has it. So they view such changes, including application updates, as upgrades rather than new projects.” UPGRADE THAT CPU For those designers working on an upgrade of an existing project, 56 percent say that they’re employing a new processor (Figure 2). Is that because they need more performance or because the processor they’d been using is no longer in production? My guess is that it’s a combination, but with a higher percentage looking for more performance. CPU vendors are very careful these days 13 Yes, likely to use it in the next 12 months 2006 (N = 975) 2005 (N = 1,613) 2007 (N = 932) Phraseology of 2007 question asked about specific time; prior years asked more generally. www.embedded.com/europe | embedded systems design europe | AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2007 012-013-014-016-017-018-019_ESDE13 13 6/09/07 13:25:53 http://www.embedded.com/europe

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Embedded Systems Design - Europe - August/September 2007

Contents News Cover Feature: Annual Study Uncovers the Embedded Market DSP Serves the Convergence Needs of Small Business Embedded Test Offers Unique Value for Serial I/O The Software Detective: First-Fault Data Capture Boards May Shrink But Performance Doesn't New Products Advertising Contacts

Embedded Systems Design - Europe - August/September 2007

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