EDITOR’S CHOICE END OF YEAR ROUND UP LOOKING AHEAD: - EMBEDDED
ELECTRONICS PREDICTIONS FOR 2019 ByteSnap's director, Dunstan Power, offers some predictions for 2019, from versatility of voice assistants to electric vehicle battery sizes, smart glasses, 5G infrastructure, IoT, mergers and acquisitions and beyond
A
s 2018 draws to a close, engineers at electronics design consultancy ByteSnap Design have been wondering what the year ahead holds for the embedded systems industry. Greater versatility for voice assistants is one aspect the company expects will come into play. This, it says is reflected in news such as Amazon and Billy Bass joining forces, from which the company claims it is looking forward to the improved functionality of voice assistants next year, “they should have better connectivity, and will continue to have extra features; For example, Google Assistant has recently been updated with routines, so that you can say “I am going to bed” and it will know that means “Turn off the light, lower the thermostat, and switch off the TV”. These up-scaled voice assistants are
also likely to be implemented into more devices such as cars, and children’s toys such as animatronics and pet robots,” says Dunsten Power, director of ByteSnap. “Expectations for electric vehicle battery sizes getting smaller are high up on the list, “although EVs with larger batteries tend to dominate the trade press, counter-intuitively, we predict an increasing market for EVs with small batteries for the foreseeable future - primarily for urban driving, he says. “We also expect that 2019 will see the start of a drive which sees small battery BEVs decreasing in size over the coming decades”, says Dunsten. He says this is because “the average trip distance in the UK is 7.04 miles; an average commuting journey is 11.2 miles and an average car drives 6500 to 7500 miles. This means that, if we assume a recharge only happens at home and we allow for a 100% margin, an urban BEV only needs a range of 45 miles. Also, note: 7500/365 = just 20 miles. “EV owners generally charge
opportunistically. So, as the number of charge points increases, the requirement for BEVs to support a whole day’s journey will reduce by a factor of two or so, meaning that an urban BEV range of 23 miles will become the norm.” The company expects to see huge
6 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2019 | ELECTRONICS
“we’re likely to experience a maturing of IoT across 2019, as it takes a greater foothold in industry, construction and other more traditional verticals, rather than being mainly consumer-driven. “This expansion in the more slow-
moving industries will be fuelled by the normalisation of connected technologies in society and with it a reduction in the perception of risk associated with their adoption plus the improvements in IoT security, which has been a major focus for semiconductor manufacturers,” says Dunsten.
market growth in this area next year, “we expect in 2019 to see really strong growth in EV (BEV) sales. They have been widely production constrained and - given the poor market in the rest of the automotive sector and the cut back in allowances on PHEVs - BEVs will surge, says Dunsten.
5G INFRASTRUCTURE ROLLOUT Moving on to 5G infrastructure the company anticipates that as 5G communications continue to be developed around the world, there’ll be a greater push by network operators to start the rollout of 5G infrastructure in the UK in 2019. The West Midlands has been designated the UK’s 5G testbed by the Government, and has been awarded £75 million of funding for the task. “Despite the lack of cohesion regarding
a global 5G rollout and the applications focus (Low latency – for, say, control of vehicles from the cloud? Super-high data rate? Low power, for IoT-type devices?), we expect to see lots of growth in the UK’s 5G infrastructure next year to herald the arrival of 5G devices in 2020,” Dusten says. The company also anticipates a resurgence of smart glasses, “smart glasses will gain greater industry prominence over the next few months and we expect they’ll re-emerge with very specific use cases in mind, rather than Google’s approach of a replacement for your phone. Cycling glasses with navigation built in and specialised heavy duty glasses for use on construction sites could be potential uses,” says Dunsten. The company believes IoT will gain greater traction in conservative markets,
Figure 1:
Electric vehicle battery sizes
MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS The company anticipates there will be no let-up in mergers and acquisitions but brakes may be applied to mega- mergers though, “Qualcomm was blocked from taking over NXP by the Chinese Government this year. Despite the cancellation of $44 billion dollar deal – Qualcomm still seems keen to expand in the semiconductor space – so look out for updates on its takeover ambitions over the next few months. Other circling big hitters include Broadcom, Cypress and Microchip,” he highlights. “Amongst all the takeover activity
Figure 1:
Versatility for voice assistants
next year, however, we expect that the mega-mergers the industry has seen in the past – such as Avago Technologies’ $37BN acquisition of Broadcom in 2016 – are unlikely to be repeated during 2019. There are a number of factors to support this, including global trade tensions, increasing regulatory activity around mergers and stock market underperformance in the sector in 2018. “Therefore, it looks to us as though double digit deals (at least those north of $20BN) will be thin on the ground next year,” Dunsten concludes. Do you agree with ByteSnap Design's
predictions? Or do you think other trends and areas of the sector – such as cybersecurity, FinTech or Agri-Tech – will dominate industry headlines instead next year?
Figure 1:
Mergers and acquisitions
ByteSnap
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