Market relevance


This project secures the competitive strength in the following European industry sector(s):

Automotive market segment

Automobiles and transportation play a significant role in the economy. They make a major contribution to the competitiveness of the European economy and to providing employment. At the same time they have an impact on the environment, traffic safety and mobility. In order to meet the more stringent requirements in relation to environmental protection, traffic safety and comfort, more and more comprehensive systems need to be developed. Due to the increasing complexity of integrated circuits such systems can be built from fewer and fewer components (e.g. the side airbag control system consists of a single sensor and a controller IC). As a result, individual ICs determine more and more the behavior of an entire system in the automobile.

In order to design such a system IC, new design methods are required in which system and circuit design can no longer be performed separately. This means that IC developers are also required to have expertise in system design. Through the integration of sensors and actuators, which play a major role in the automobile in particular, these are always mixed-signal systems. In the future, therefore, end-to-end design of such mixed-signal ICs will be a crucial factor in competitiveness for the development of ICs for applications in the automobile sector.

Telecommunications market segment

Communications technology and data transmission have opened up completely new markets in the last several years as a result of ever smaller products which consume less power and are becoming cheaper all the time. A good example is the spread of mobile telephones, but even data communication – still largely wire-based – can point to enormous growth rates. An increasing link can be seen between the improved capabilities in communications technology and many other markets, e.g. as a result of the emergence of e-commerce. Not least as a result of the international UMTS standard for third-generation mobile telephones, markets which were previously structured on a national scale are being increasingly globalized, creating sales opportunities but also risks for European companies.

In contrast to traditional products, the new developments in the communications sector often demand that high-frequency aspects be taken into account. The requirements that arise from RF applications for system and A/MS design can not be met sufficiently with currently available EDA tools and methods. As the SIA roadmap addresses the A/MS and RF sectors only to an inadequate extent, it is unlikely that appropriate efforts will be made in the (largely American) commercial EDA sector. In order to survive in this market segment, however, a considerable improvement in design support is essential. There is a huge opportunity not only to strengthen the position of the European system and semiconductor manufacturers, but also to dominate market segments through appropriately specialized design know-how. This is a major objective of the project.