Embedded Systems Industry Trends

Embedded Systems Industry Status

• Embedded systems industry survey (Aspencore-EETimes): Annual survey with approximately 1000 respondents, providing ±3% confidence level data on development trends.
• World Regions: US/Canada (56%), Europe/ENEA (25%), and Asia (11%) are major regions.
• Company Size: Average employee count is ~3452, slightly down from 2015; embedded design is concentrated in small companies.
• Job Functions: Top four include debugging (62%), firmware/software writing (60%), hardware/software integration (62%), and architecture selection (59%).
• Experience: Average years out of school for 2017 respondents is 24.
• Applications: Industrial controls (36%), consumer electronics (25%), and IoT (24%) are the leading application areas; IoT usage has significantly increased.
• IoT/Advanced Technologies: Sensor-driven (42%) and industrial (39%) IoT applications dominate. Half the respondents feel IoT design is crucial within the next year; embedded vision and machine learning are highly valued, with 54% creating IoT edge devices and 64% having IoT projects.
• Project Upgrades: 57% of projects are upgrades, focusing on software improvements (50%) and processor upgrades (38%).
• Wireless Communication: Wi-Fi (65%), Bluetooth (60%), and cellular (25%) are top choices.
• Team Size: Average team is 14 members, having ~3 specialists each in firmware, non-firmware, hardware, quality assurance, system integration, and others.
• SW/HW Resources: Software resources generally dominate (61% / 39%).
• Circuit Boards: 81% of projects build or outsource boards instead of buying; 50% start with development boards (e.g., STM, TI, Xilinx, NXP, Microchip, Arduino, Raspberry).
• Board Form Factors: Primarily custom designs (26%), followed by proprietary (23%) and Arduino/Raspberry (17% each).
• Project Completion Time: Most projects are completed within one year (73% within 1 year, 37% within 6 months).
• Programming Languages: C (56%), C++ (22%), and Assembly (4%) are prevalent; others are significantly less.
• Code Reuse: 81% reuse embedded project code.
• Design Improvements: Top priorities are debugging tools (19%), scheduling (17%), and engineering team skills (15%).
• Operating Systems: 70% use an OS, with preference for open-source (40%), commercial (30%), or in-house (17%).
• Next Projects OS: Free-RTOS (28%), Embedded Linux (27%), Custom (19%), Android (17%), and Debian Linux (11%) are top candidates, while all other options are less than 10%.
• Processor Count: Single (56%), dual (25%) or more than two processors are typical processor configurations.
• Processor Selection: Processor choice based on tools/support (70%) rather than chip features (25%); common processor suppliers are Microchip-Atmel, TI, STM, Freescale.

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Embedded Systems (ES)

• System Definition: A system comprises interconnected elements (physical, computational) with inputs and outputs, often represented as a box with input/output arrows.
• Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS): Physical systems with embedded computers to enhance operation.
• Example: Engine control systems are CPS examples, where computers dynamically manage throttle settings to control torque and avoid stalls. This improves system performance by preventing fuel waste.

Explore the current status of the embedded systems industry through survey data that highlights development trends, regional distributions, company sizes, and job functions. This quiz delves into the emerging applications in industrial controls, consumer electronics, and IoT technology, showcasing the importance of IoT design in the future.