With accelerated infrastructure growth in areas such as China and India, the capital investment boom in the Middle East in oil, gas, and refineries, and the need for the United States, Japan, and Western Europe to modernize their aging automation infrastructure, FPGAs and CPLDs are increasingly taking center stage in a variety of applications. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and distributed I/O modules make up the largest segment of the market—a segment forecast to grow to $10 billion worldwide in 2010 (CAGR of 6%), up from $7.6 billion in 2005. The market for AC and servo drives is also benefiting from this economic growth and is expected to grow in the world market from $7.6 billion in 2004 to $9 billion in 2008 (CAGR of 5.4%).
Figure 1 shows a traditional factory environment.
Figure 1. Traditional Factory Environment
Key trends in the industrial automation markets include:
- A transition of large equipment manufacturers to intellectual content companies linking their manufacturing controls systems to ERP software.
- Networking is at the forefront in the automation market as companies are transitioning proprietary networks to Ethernet-based networks.
- Integrated safety features in automation equipment are becoming mainstream.
- Wireless-enabled I/O devices on the network.
FPGAs are advantageous in this market because you can program them with a new hardware configuration in just seconds. This capability lets you change the functionality of your product immediately—in the field, at the warehouse, or on the production line. Our SOPC Builder system generation tool automates intellectual property (IP) configuration and integration. Together with our partners, we offer more than 200 IP cores that can be used off-the-shelf to create a hardware system in just minutes using SOPC Builder.
With our Quartus® II design software, you can minimize power, optimize speed, and reduce system compile times in your FPGA design. Our configurable Nios® II embedded processor allows you to easily create a microprocessor-based system that is customized to match your application requirements.
