Wireless connectivity is an exciting and rapidly growing market for the semiconductor -industry and developers and manufacturers of networked devices alike.
According to the market researchers at IHS Markit, 125 billion networked appliances, machines and gadgets are already antici-pated to be in use in 2030; in 2018, that -figure still stood at something in the region of 31 billion. Concurrent with this development, the volume of data transferred is continuing to increase: IHS Markit expects the current annual growth rate of 20 to 25 per cent to increase to 50 per cent annually within the next 15 years. According to Microsoft, 20,000 GB of data are currently transported over the Internet per second at present.
In the process, an ever-increasing proportion of such data is transferred with the help of wireless technologies. This strikes us as a good reason to dedicate the new issue of The Quintessence to these wireless technologies. In our view, this is an exciting market; one that not only covers the many and varied technical solutions, but also fields of application in all manner of sectors and areas of our lives. There are -networked cars, to name just one example: 125 million -passenger cars with integrated connectivity are forecast to be sold between 2018 and 2022 according to market research institute Counterpoint. One of the drivers for this is the develop-ment of autonomous cars.
The healthcare industry is another important market for wireless technologies: Wi-Fi devices in hospitals exchange medical data with the cloud, while patients can be given wearables that transmit vital body functions to their doctor. As revealed by a market survey conducted by P&S Market Research, the IoT healthcare market is expected to reach a volume of USD 267.6 billion by the year 2023.
Indeed, without wireless technologies, Industry 4.0 would also be entirely infeasible. The closely linked -networking of products and machinery increases efficiency, lowers costs and conserves resources. Consultancy firm Accenture estimates that the Industrial Internet of Things will generate an additional USD 14 trillion for the -global economy in the run-up to 2030.
As such, wireless data transfer will become an increasingly significant sector for chip manufacturers, too. According to IHS Markit, -semiconductor manufacturers saw revenues of USD 131 billion from wireless applications in 2017, in comparison to a total revenue of USD 428.9 billion. So, there you have it: wireless connectivity is a varied and rapidly growing market for the semiconductor industry and developers and manufacturers of networked devices alike. And – on that note – I hope you enjoy reading this issue!
Slobodan Puljarevic
President of EBV Elektronik