Report predicts poor show for PC/104 sector

According to a recent report, the global market for embedded merchant computer boards reached $3.3 billion in 2003 and is expected to reach $4.3 billion by the year 2006, growing at a CAGR of 6.4%.

According to a recent report by Venture Development Corp (VDC), "The 2002/2003 merchant computer boards for embedded/real time applications market intelligence program", the global market for embedded merchant computer boards reached $3.3 billion in 2003 and is expected to reach $4.3 billion by the year 2006, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4%.

All product categories are projected to exhibit positive growth in dollar volume shipments over the period, with the exception of the PC/104 family.

The decline in dollar volume shipments of PC/104 family modules is attributed to a predicted sharp erosion in average selling prices (ASPs) over the period; unit volume shipments of these modules are projected to increase.

The most dramatic growth is projected for standards-based/embedded blades, and for computers-on-modules (COMs).

Both of these categories comprise emerging technologies.

Eric Gulliksen, VDC's Embedded Hardware Practice Director, offers these precautions to board manufacturers: "Overall, the embedded board market appears to be reasonably healthy, with the exception of the PC/104 family category.

However, we expect to see a fairly rapid migration from 'traditional' CompactPCI SBCs toward embedded blades, particularly in the communications sector.

We believe that 'fabric-enabled' CompactPCI SBCs that also carry the shared bus onto the backplane, as most of the boards under PICMG 2.16, 2.17 etc do, represent a transition step".

Gulliksen also states: "Despite the reasonable healthy growth projected for mezzanine cards, we caution against viewing these as a major opportunity.

This market is already too crowded, with too many vendors and too many products".

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