Embedded Systems Design Europe - October 2007 - (Page 10)

news Automotive to drive MCU market Between 2006 and 2010, the market volume for automotive microcontrollers will expand about 63 percent, concludes a study from market researcher Frost & Sullivan. . The main demand driver is the proliferation of electronic content in vehicles aiming at reducing human errors as well as the increasing number of safety features such as radars, ultra sonic sensors and multiplexing with all of them requiring increasing amounts of processing power and intelligence, the market research company says. “After a complete industry makeover, the market for automotive microcontrollers expects to witness tremendous growth over the next years primarily due to the growth of end-user markets and expanding applications of integrated circuits in automobiles,” predicts Frost & Sullivan Senior Research Analyst Bonnie Varghese. The study forecasts the market to grow from $5.83 billion in 2006 to $9.52 billion in 2010. A source for additional microcontroller demand will be the rise of hybrid and electric vehicles, the study ﬁnds. Increasing car sales especially in Asia also will make a contribution to drive the microcontroller market. Another reason for growing electronic automotive content is the necessity to increase fuel efﬁciency while at the same time reducing emissions. In order to achieve these goals, the industry increasingly relies on electronic solutions. In this segment, Europe in particular will generate substantial revenues due to early technological acceptance and government regulations. However, strong quality requirements and certiﬁcations will continue to pose challenges for vendors in the microcontroller market. In order to master these challenges, Frost & Sullivan recommends the microcontroller manufacturers to focus on core competencies. “Rather than diverting attention to various technologies and protocols, manufacturers can concentrate on fewer technologies which will likely prove more advantageous for marketing and business”, said Varghese. They also should match performance requirements with the costs of their products, she said. New supporters join COM Express group Six new members, all from Taiwan, have joined the COM Industrial Group which tries to set a standard for graphics and other core features for COM Express board computers. The new members have committed to support the COM Express Extension for Computer-on-Module products. The new members are Aaeon Technology, Aewin Technology, Arbor Technology, Avalue Technology, Axiomtek and Ibase Technology. All new supporters are headquartered in Taiwan. With new members, the COM Industrial Group (COM IG) has grown to eight members. Founding members are board computer manufacturer Kontron AG (Eching, Germany) and platform solution provider Advantech Co. Ltd (San Jose, Calif). The COM IG aims at standardizing form factor, pin assignment and other aspect of x86-based computer modules. The COM Express Extension, based on the PCIMG COM.0 COM Express speciﬁcation describes optimized pin-outs for graphics and other core features for COM Express designs. Analyst weighs TI versus Xilinx versus picoChip BDTI recently ﬁnished a comparison of the three main contenders for highperformance DSP. And here’s what you should know about the results according to BDTI’s Kenton Williston. In the ﬁght for the high-performance DSP market there appear to be three main contenders. High-performance DSP processors are the entrenched incumbents, beneﬁting from a small army of engineers with DSP programming experience and huge amounts of existing code. FPGAs have in recent years emerged as a major challenger as highend application requirements have outstripped single-core DSP performance. And newest to the party are a wave of massively parallel processor startups 10 mainly targeting wireless basestations and emerging video applications. Picking a winner is tough. Partly because, market forces aside, there’s very little comparable performance data. That’s why I was intrigued to see BDTI’s recently released results for the massively parallel PC102 chip on its OFDM benchmark. This is the ﬁrst benchmark I’ve seen with results for all three contenders. The PC102 from startup picoChip goes head to head with TI’s ﬂagship C6455 and FPGAs from Altera and Xilinx. Not surprisingly, the PC102 and the FPGAs fare much better than the TI DSP. The PC102 and FPGAs can implement many more OFDM channels than the C6455, which can implement only one, and offer much lower cost in terms of channels-per-dollar. The FPGAs beat out the PC102 in number of OFDM channels and channels-per-dollar, but not by nearly as large a margin as both beat the DSP. Of course, many questions remain. Chief among them is the question of ease of programming, something much more difﬁcult to benchmark. (This is a particularly pressing issue for FPGAs, as I noted in last week’s blog. see www. eetimes.eu/202101657). For a discussion of programmability and other issues, such as the effect of advancing process nodes, check out FPGAs vs. DSPs: A look at the unanswered questions - see www.eetimes. eu/196802403 OCTOBER 2007 | embedded systems design europe | www.embedded.com/europe 010_ESDE.indd 10 12/10/07 11:45:11 http://www.eetimes.eu/202101657 http://www.eetimes.eu/202101657 http://www.eetimes.eu/196802403 http://www.eetimes.eu/196802403 http://www.embedded.com/europe

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Embedded Systems Design Europe - October 2007

Embedded Systems Design Europe - October 2007 Contents Linux Set to Dominate Torvalds Updates Linux Kernel ARM Establishes Smart Card Foundry Program Emerson Buys Motorola's Embedded Comms Group LynuxWroks and TTTech to Cooperate on Avionics MontaVista CEO Looks for Acquisitions in Europe Ready: Multiprocessing Technology Provides Opportunity Automotive to Drive MCU Market New Supporters Join COM Express Group Analyst Weighs TI Versus Xilinx Versus PicoChip Cover Feature: Embedded Systems Security Has Moved to the Forefront Trace Exposes the Toughest Real-Time Bugs Employ a Secure Flavor of Linux Use an MCU's Low-Power Modes in Foreground/Background Systems Transporting Video Over Wireless Networks New Products Advertising Contacts

Embedded Systems Design Europe - October 2007

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