Embedded Technology Shaping the future of embedded
An outlook of what’s driving innovation in the embedded market in 2025 by Thomas Staudinger, President of Tria Technologies
All images are credited to Adobe Stock
T
he next 12 months will be interesting for the embedded industrial market as we see a rise in demand for performance, both in raw processing and in
machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). At the same time the European Cybersecurity Act comes into force, so there is expected to be much more focus on security, particularly across the Internet of Things (IoT).
To meet these demands, designers are looking for more capabilities from chips and boards, whether that’s from the latest microprocessor, or one with an AI accelerator, or additional wireless connectivity. These innovations, however, need to be delivered without a change of footprint to allow rapid product iteration.
38 March 2025
The need for flexibility
One of the key lessons from the last couple of years is platform consolidation, and this will continue to grow in 2025. The supply chain disruption during and after the Covid-19 pandemic showed companies that they had too many platforms. So, OEMs are looking to be more flexible in terms of technology and less dependent on one particular platform while simplifying their own supply chain, from design through to product lifecycle.
There is also much stronger demand for more performance. Designers are moving from microcontrollers to microprocessors with enhanced functionality and access to more memory but need all of this to fit into a small footprint.
There is increasing pressure on designers Components in Electronics
in 2025 to look at the make versus buy decision. Across the hardware design community, a lot of engineers will retire in the next few years. At the same time, the microprocessors that are in use now and coming out from the various companies are getting more and more complex. This means designing at a chip level is becoming more challenging, so engineering teams are looking at their options. Buying in the technology in the form of a module can save considerable resources and improve the time to market. It also allows companies to differentiate via software because hardware is more or less a commodity.
Engineers are increasingly turning to compute modules to provide flexibility, increase speed to market and meet the increasing demands of their application.
Modules reduce the challenges associated with supporting multiple processors, making device selection less challenging as it can be upgraded to the latest performance quickly and easily, or a similar part sourced quickly and easily. New standards - such as the Open Standard Module (OSM) - provide a common set of footprints for developers that is not much larger than the processor itself.
OSM will be a critical change as it allows development of reliable modules that are similar to ball grid array packages with a common footprint and pinout definitions, leaving the module makers to innovate on what they can fit into the space. The best modules can then easily be selected and integrated into any application. Software development timescales can
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