Embedded computing market to hit $4.8B this year

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 4/10/2007

Revenue in the merchant embedded computing market rose 11 percent over 2005 to $4.4 billion in 2006 with total revenue in the market expected to reach $4.8 billion this year, growing to $6.3 billion in 2011, according to San Jose-based market research firm Electronic Trend Publications (ETP).

The firm also said it expects substantial growth in 2007 and 2008, before a probable industry slowdown in 2009.

A recent report by the firm examines the standards-based embedded computing products market, relating technological advances and specification development of various standard bus architectures and describes market forces that are changing the nature of the business, among other things.

The firm also noted that the communications segment accounted for 31 percent of this market's revenue in 2006, and that the combined value of ATCA and AMC products will grow to 18 percent of this market by 2011.

ETP expects the overall merchant embedded computing market to grow nicely in the communications, industrial, medical, and military/aerospace markets, while competitive forces and growth rates of these application markets vary widely. In all cases, the merchant market for embedded computing products represents only a small portion of the total value of the electronics consumed in these markets, the firm noted.

The embedded transition to advanced architectures has begun, but will evolve fairly slowly, the firm said. Edge-card form factor PCI boards (a.k.a. PCI slot boards) continued to account for about 16 percent of the merchant embedded computing market in 2006.

ETP also reminded that although some industry pundits wrote CompactPCI’s obituary shortly after the release of the AdvancedTCA specification, nothing could be further from the truth. CompactPCI continues to see steady increases in revenue and currently accounts for 25 percent of the merchant market.