INTERCONNECTIVITY
Product interconnectivity is becoming a reality, albeit slowly. According to the CEA, PC-like devices are moving into home networks, reducing the separation between time and place. "There is a fundamental technological shift taking place in the electronics industry," says Will Strauss, president and principal analyst of Forward Concepts. "It is moving from the PC era to a new era driven by connectivity and multimedia."
Design expertise in RF and miniaturization may be at a premium in the industrial electronics area now as manufacturers continue to implement new applications for RF identification. "RFID is an evolving technology with significant potential to differentiate the manufacturer," says Tom Ryan, a vice president of the Aberdeen Group, a technology consultancy.
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Through a series of surveys, market-research firm Evans Data Corp. says that it identified inventory management, security, access control, industrial tracking, and vehicle control as applications of primary interest by companies planning to implement RFID. Even with concerns that RFID technology can be used to track individuals, which raises privacy issues, Evans expects the number of discrete RFID applications to nearly double by 2006.
Automotive electronics is another burgeoning market. Legislation on engine emissions and safety has already generated a market for electronic controllers valued at more than $30 million worldwide, and that could grow to $50 million by 2010. Meanwhile, opportunities abound for devices involving collision warning, night vision, tire-pressure warning, trip computers, navigation and traffic information systems, drowsiness monitors, and remote vehicle diagnostics, among others. Software, which accounted for an estimated 4% of the total vehicle cost in 2002, could increase to 13% by 2010, according to Strategy Analytics.
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Another growing opportunity within the industrial-electronics arena, at least near-term, lies in ruggedized/industrial computer systems. This sector has been experiencing a decline in commodity component prices and more competition from new market players.
Most of the action in test and measurement involves wireless, says Galen Wampler, an analyst who follows T&M for Prime Data. "Anything to do with wireless is a growth area" for T&M, he says. Only now is 3G wireless being introduced in the U.S. It presents a new growth opportunity, especially for spectrum analyzer makers.
Wampler says the optical test market continues to slowly recover and may not make any noticeable growth numbers until 2005. Also in that category is voice-over-IP (VoIP). Overall, most analysts expect the telecom/datacom market for T&M to reach or slightly exceed $5 billion by 2006.
Medical electronics is a difficult market to track, with its many applications either emerging or in test. But it can't be denied that electronics technology is making a serious impact on medicine, with a quickly expanding range of new products for diagnostic instrumentation (including wireless devices and microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS). Device packaging, with more emphasis on miniaturization, is another key R&D area in medical electronics. For instance, there's a big push in developing personal-area networks to control and monitor implantable medical devices. Operating in the 400-MHz RF band, these devices contact physicians when the implanted mechanism detects a medical problem.
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NEXT BIG THING?
Opinions range on what new technology or product will take the industry by storm. Nanotechnology is an obvious candidate, with standards development already well under way for automobile "black boxes." Biometrics is another possibility, especially wearable computers and networks. When you say you're "plugged in," it won't be just a figure of speech. Recent advances point to a new generation of very light, mostly hidden, and highly miniaturized "wearware" with a range of intelligent applications.
Where does all of this leave working engineers? Most companies, especially the giants, don't seem fazed by the inordinate bad press about the industry's growing involvement in offshore manufacturing. In fact, many companies that rely on offshore contract manufacturing expect continued strong demand for their products.
It's not clear that political support for working engineers, even in this election year, will make a dent in outsourcing. Despite pronouncements by legal experts to the contrary, a recent study by the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan trade think tank, says efforts by U.S. state and federal lawmakers to outlaw government work from going offshore may violate the Constitution and federal trade laws.
John Steadman, president of the IEEE-USA, the IEEE's lobbying group based in Washington, D.C., argues that "it's going to be difficult to remain technologically competitive if we continue offshoring the jobs of our innovators at rates currently projected." Nonetheless, engineering job postings are seemingly on the rise, particularly for military/aerospace contractors and wireless equipment manufacturers.
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