EMBEDDED SYSTEMS MARKET LEADERSHIP
Embedded Systems are designed by combining microprocessor computer hardware and software for performing pre-defined tasks independently or with other systems. Embedded systems are used in the healthcare, automotive, aerospace, industrial, consumer electronics, and communication verticals.
The overall embedded system market is expected to grow from USD 86.5 billion in 2020 to USD 116.2 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 6.1% during the forecast period. The growth of the overall embedded system market is driven by various factors such as increasing number of research & development activities related to embedded systems, surge in demand for ADAS in EV and hybrid vehicles, increase in demand for portable devices equipped with embedded systems, and rise in demand for multicore processors in military applications.
In 2019, the embedded system market was dominated by STMicroelectronics, Intel, Renesas, NXP, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung Electronics, and Microchip. These leading players adopted a few major strategies in the market which created a significant impact. The strategies comprised product launches, strategic partnerships, and business agreements along with mergers & acquisitions.
Intel (US) manufactures various products, such as processors, systems and devices, chipsets, FPGAs, structured ASICs, and servers. The company caters to applications and industries, such as automotive, broadcast, communications, energy, financial services, industrial, military, and consumer electronics. Intel adopts both, organic and inorganic strategies to become a market leader in the embedded system market. It focuses on various collaborations and acquisitions along with product launches to meet the changing needs of its wide customer base. For example, Intel acquired Mobileye (Israel) to strengthen its position in the Embedded Systems market by combining the vision systems offered by Mobileye with its own AI capabilities. Similarly, the company recently acquired Habana Labs (US) to improve its competitiveness in the Best Embedded Systems.
Renesas Electronics Corporation (Japan), is one of the leaders in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The company provides a broad range of products, including microcontrollers and microprocessors, embedded system memory devices, system-on-chip (SoC), and a variety of analog and power devices. The company deals in applications related to industrial, automotive, healthcare, building automation (BA), office automation (OA), energy management system, and information communication technology. Renesas has taken a consumer-centric approach to address the high-growth markets, and has improved its position in the embedded system market. It partnered with various companies in the automotive industry, such as Nissan (Yokohama, Japan), Volkswagen (Wolfsburg, Germany), and Continental (Hanover, Germany). These alliances are expected to enhance the usage of its technologies while jointly developing new-age auto-mobility solutions. The company also joined the Autonomous Vehicle Computing Consortium consisting of players such as Bosch (Gerlingen, Germany), NXP Semiconductors (Eindhoven, Netherlands), and ARM (Cambridge, UK) to speed up its autonomous driving vehicle development program.
STMicroelectronics (Switzerland) is a global semiconductor solutions provider. STMicroelectronics offers a variety of products such as microcontrollers and microprocessors, power modules and devices, memories, MEMS and sensors, and analog and digital ICs. Some of the sectors that the company is involved in include industrial, automotive, IoT applications, personal electronics, and communications. STMicroelectronics focuses on product launches and development to grow its share in the embedded solutions market. The company launched various products and solutions for IoT- and IIoT-based applications. Its STM32 family of microcontrollers gives it the flexibility to provide solutions for various industries such as automotive, communication, healthcare, IoT. This allows the company to offer a broad product portfolio to its customers and help in cross-selling different products on the same platform. As it has a front foot in the low-power MCUs, STMicroelectronics can consider increasing its collaborations and partnerships activities to solidify its position in low-power consumption technologies and devices in the IoT network.
NXP Semiconductors (Netherlands)specializes in designing, manufacturing, and marketing semiconductor devices. NXP Semiconductors offers various products such as ARM processors and MCUs, power architecture processors, sensors, interface and connectivity, security, and media and audio processing. The solutions provided by NXP Semiconductors find applications in sectors such as automotive, mobile, industrial, smart devices, and communication. NXP Semiconductors has been able to cater to the changing needs of customers and remain one of the leaders in the automotive semiconductor industry. This has also helped the company maintain a comprehensive outlook of the automotive industry, developing next-generation ADAS and related security solutions. The company could consider using itsR&D findings to increase its market in non-automotive industries such as retail consumer electronics, which is a significant opportunity for its competitors.