Embedded Technology The Road Ahead

Monday, August 13, 2007

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Imagine while reading a newspaper, you can take a pen-like device connected to your computer or PDA and run it over the barcode-like feature printed alongside the article or advertisement that interests you and your computer or PDA automatically gets the contents from the Web.

Or, just imagine walking in a busy shopping mall and you come across a billboard that catches your attention and you would like to get more details about that product. You simply point your PDA at a particular corner in the billboard and download the address of the relevant website and other details from it, over infrared.

These are some of the applications that we will be encountering in our daily life, soon. The products that enable these applications will have to be designed in a different way, keeping in mind the cost and the time to market.

And, these applications, powerful yet compact and mobile, would form the core of the high performance embedded systems of tomorrow.

Current scenario

The Indian semiconductor and embedded design industry has revenues to the tune of $ 3.3 billion (2005) and employs nearly 75,000 people. This is expected to increase to revenues of $43 billion in 2015 with employment projections of 7,80,000 plus in 2015. The semiconductor sector encompasses VLSI design, hardware/board design and embedded software development, offered by both captive and non-captive companies across India.

Today, the tremendous success of the Indian IT industry has built the image of the country as a hub for technological innovations. The pool of talent available in the country, improvements in infrastructure along with a huge domestic market have created a friendly environment for the product level designs to be addressed from India.

Most of the large global companies have design and development centers in India. We can broadly classify the companies addressing the embedded systems area in India, as follows:

• System Design companies

• IP, content providers

• EDA/Tool companies

• Design Services companies\

• Multi-national product companies

The eco system for the entire product development is currently in place in India with the exception of large scale manufacturing facilities which are now just coming up, especially in the EMS space. Companies aspiring to be successful in the embedded space will have to address the skill, knowledge and re-use dimensions apart from sustained investments and alignment with right partners. The capabilities extend to complex ASIC/SoC design and verification, Silicon IP development, board design capabilities, vast experience in embedded software development and strong system level design and testing capabilities. The investments in state-of-the-art tools, equipment and methodologies are also substantial.

Undoubtedly, the embedded market in India is one of the rapidly growing segments in the Indian semiconductor industry. Some of the verticals, which are growing, include interactive clients (embedded terminals), retail, industrial equipment, medical imaging and communications. In addition, several design services companies are involved in embedded hardware and software development, typically for overseas customers.

In the interactive-client segment, there is a trend towards increased connectivity and rich graphics. A point-of-sale terminal (POS) is a great example of this. The latest POS devices incorporate dual-display (for advertising) and are increasingly connected to a central server for remote configuration and accounting management.

Emerging market

Embedded products are flooding our lives with many non-PC devices. We come across them everyday, in home-appliances, phones, toys, entertainment systems, printers etc. These can mostly be classified under first generation systems.

However, a new wave is emerging with the advent of the all-pervasive Internet. The Internet is proliferating extensively into our homes and is responsible for bringing about the convergence of various technologies. The complexities of designs are consistently moving up, since the needs of the consumers have gone way above because of the Internet. People want access to information all the time, even when they are on the move. So, the new-generation embedded products should have the ability to connect to the Internet or at least a local communication network. Otherwise, there is a risk of such an embedded product becoming outdated in the market, very soon.

Three important aspects dominate the next-generation embedded products. Early introduction of products will help in achieving profits in a quicker manner, in this competitive market. Secondly, the product has to be priced right, so as to attract customers. This one is a major factor. Thirdly, people tend to choose products that are rich in features, even though they may not use all those features. A rich feature-set increases the chances of hitting the right chords in the customer. It becomes important to create strong differentiators. Designers should consider the real world constraints like physical size, component/manufacturing costs etc, very early in the design cycle. Let us look at some of the considerations that one would have to think in this scenario.

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