Dear Readers,
As already mentioned in the Viewpoint
of our March/April print issue of ECE
and B&S the next Megatrend in the
embedded industry is the Internet of
Things (IoT). The race to participate is
this new market is on and still acceler-
ating! To succeed in the IoT market
companies work closer together and
create new cooperation. One example
is our cover story which describes the
close relationship between AMD and
congatec to accelerate the development
of IoT applications.
The top vertical growth markets for IoT appliances include first
smart factories. IoT will help to increase productivity and reduce in-
ventory costs together with savings in the production and supply
chain processes. The second growth market is retail with intelligent
POS/POI and digital signage applications because IoT appliances will
transform how operators engage with customers, analyze their behav-
iour, and optimize the impact of their interactions. Healthcare and
patient monitoring is another growth market. IoT will enable better-
connected devices and data-driven patient management, resulting in
improved healthcare effectiveness and efficiency.
A key enabler for all these new decentralized IoT appliances is the
right processor technology platform to lend the devices intelligence
and connectivity. To achieve lowest R&D costs, the platform should
be standardized and should also deliver all the required interfaces in
the form of standard building blocks. Furthermore, it is imperative
that these standard platforms can be freely programmed. In order to
be able to execute smaller as well as more complex tasks it should also
be scalable to embrace outstanding computing performance and in-
creased graphics capabilities while at the same time offering high
energy and cost efficiency. As time to market will be an increasingly
important competitive factor, developers are looking for simplified
development. They should, therefore, stick to a technology that offers
simple programmability based on common standards as well as a
rich ecosystem of peripherals and tool chains.
It is, however, not just a question of the right embedded processor
technology. This on its own does not suffice to enable OEMs to
expertly innovate IoT appliances. More than anything, they require
suitable embedded computing platforms on which to base their ap-
plications. To simplify the design, optimize the time to market and
keep R&D efforts as low as possible, OEMs should rely on tested and
proven standards. This approach is also the best guarantee for maxi-
mum design security, reliability and it enables a high level of re-use.
The most common and successful platforms for low power SFF
devices are Mini-ITX motherboards and the Computer-On-Module
standards, Qseven and COM Express for semi custom designs, which
are for example offered by congatec.
I m sure this will be only the first cooperation of this kind and many
more will follow in future.
Yours sincerely
Wolfgang Patelay
Editor
3
June 2014
V
IEWPOINT
