The future of smart power and magnetic sensing

SAE 100 Future look: The economics of the automotive marketplace have long lured component suppliers because of its corresponding stability, predictable growth, and long life cycles.

The annual revenue growth for semiconductors in automotive applications is a robust 9%, and suppliers realize that focused effort on sales to the automotive industry will result in sustained, gradual growth, but will most likely not yield the hefty positive revenue spikes that occur periodically in other markets such as telecommunications.

This consistency does provide some revenue security as well as long-term visibility for strategic-planning purposes because it does not suffer the severe cycle troughs experienced in other industries. Further offsetting the temporary lulls in the automotive market is the growth of electronic content in many applications. Some analysts predict that by 2010, the electronic content will be 30-40% of the total cost of an automobile. While a vehicle had an average of 74 sensors, actuators, and controllers in 2002, it will soon have about 174 similar electronic components by 2010. And some of the higher-end vehicles could use twice this many electrical components.