Consumer Electronics Dominates the High Tech World

By John MacWilliams, Bishop & Associates Inc.

A tour of the tradeshow at CES 2012 suggests that innovation is being focused on the consumer marketplace. But this year, we’ll mainly see improvements on existing ideas.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is one of the highlights of the year for professionals in every facet of the electronics world. It’s a chance to get a sneak preview of the tools that will shape our future, and a chance to meet the companies that will bring these innovations to the marketplace. Las Vegas hosted CES 2012 January 10-13, and its 150,000 attendees brought $150 million into the local economy. Over 2,700 companies exhibited dazzling new products at the tradeshow. But was there a game-changer?

CES is known, along with MacWorld, as the launching pad for blockbuster new products. But this year? Perhaps not so much. Instead we observed a wide range of evolutionary product announcements. Exhibitors showed off new products that build on recent technology advances and successes with smart phones, flat panel TVs, tablets, PCs, and various home entertainment products.

Many hope this year’s introduction of ultra-thin notebook PCs, although two years behind Apple’s MacBook Air, will recharge the PC market. These ultrabooks, as Intel calls them, are designed to ward off further inroads by iPads in the notebook area, and they will probably strengthen the notebook category. But we see a growing market for tablets of all stripes, as a growing number of consumers with limited computing needs find tablets to be a svelte alternative to notebooks.

This year CES seemed to emphasize PCs, against a backdrop of few other new killer applications, perhaps because the PC industry, led by Intel, seems determined to re-energize growth in a market being overrun with mobile devices.

The consumer electronics (CE) market is more important to the electronics industry each year. It now represents over 60% of semiconductor unit volume. If we combine telecom, computer, and consumer products, it is very important to the connector market as well. Add auto, and the consumer electronics market is the largest market for connector products.

Several things are in common between the various CE markets:

• The traditional CE industry has morphed into many other markets led by mobile systems.

• It is harder to distinguish where CE stops and B2B markets begin.

• CE has gone from low to high tech, utilizing some of the latest technologies and applications.

• CE has become a global marketplace bolstered by double-digit growth in emerging economies.

• CE applications and products are newly more attractive to companies seeking high volume opportunities with not-so-low tech products.

• In many cases, CE products now cross industry lines, USB being just one of many examples.

In the CE realm there are certain enabling technologies that tend to drive the industry. They include:

• Semiconductors, of course; but within that category many very important developments, including multicore microprocessors, image sensors, flash memory, MEMS position sensors, Si radios, etc.

• LCD displays. They are now used almost everywhere, with the astounding visual quality of OLED coming on.

• Solid state memory, without which many recent product developments would not have been possible.

• Wireless communications technology from 802.11n to 4G LTE, and much more to come.

• Small form factor packaging, from SMT to FPC, SiP, 3D, and SoC, now enabling credit card thickness.

• Input-Output applications, with streamlined user-friendly high-speed serial interfaces like USB 3.0 and HDMI.

• Software, ever-evolving, with many unique breakthroughs coming in the near future.

• Applications, opened up to 3rd party innovations, make many products indispensable.

The CES tradeshow left these impressions:

1. PCs were front and center, with new, sleeker all-in-one desktops and ultrabooks spearheaded by Intel.

2. We’ll see the 10Gb Thunderbolt interface open up to PC later this year.

3. More USB 3.0 is coming, leaving one to wonder how these two IO technologies will interact in the future.

4. Larger displays are in, with 27” diag. now the standard with new AIO desktops.

5. Very thin FPDs: >50”, incredibly thin, and with emerging OLED technology. Also, plasma is not dead.

6. More peripherals are combining applications. Example: External HDD storage device combining a network router.

7. We’re moving toward, but not yet over, the finish line with Web-based TV/home theater applications. (Watch Apple.)

8. More communications and apps-based auto electronics will change drive time.

9. Digital cameras are still evolving, even in the face of smart phone competition.

10. Much more is to come with tablets and smart phones.

CNET does the official CES best-of-show competition. This year the winners were:

1. Car Electronics: QNX Car2 Mobile using near-field communications for ubiquitous Bluetooth connectivity based on RIM Blackberry and Playbook applications

2. Cell Phones: Nokia Windows Mobile Lumia 900 phone

3. Imaging: FujiFilm X-Pro-1 Mirrorless DSC

4. Emerging Technology: Maker Bot Replicator – 3D thermoplastic printing machine

5. Home Theater: Simple TV – connects TV program to iPad, Roku, or other player for video-on-demand

6. PCs: HP 14” Envy Specter notebook, a cross between ultrabooks and Power Notebook PCs

7. Software: BlueStacks for Windows runs Android OS on Win7 machines

8. Networking/Storage: D-Link HDIR Media Router

9. Tablets: Asus MeMo 7” Quad Core 7” Tablet for $250
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    

10. Television: LG 55” EM9600 ultra-thin OLED TV uses proprietary cable to route electronics

The Grand Prize winner was the LG EM9600. LG says that by 2016 OLED TVs will be the same price as LCD TVs now.

For the connector industry, these announcements appear to point toward the following:

• USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt will vie for future IO prominence. USB’s lower cost and legacy applications may insure its preeminence, even with a 2:1 speed differential.

• Future LCD display interconnects will change to the extent that OLED non-backlit LCDs change the packaging equation.

• Solid State Memory will continue its rapid march. The main effect on connectors will be a) more SD card slots, b) more SATA 2.5’ SSD drive applications, c) more high volume products that utilize connector products.

• Continuing packaging challenges as products get thinner with more integrated electronics.

John MacWilliams Senior Consultant and Analyst, Bishop & Associates Inc. John has enjoyed a long and diverse career in the electronics industry, including management positions with IRC, TRW, AMP, and his own company, US Competitors LLC. He is the author of many industry articles, including past and current iNEMI.org connector industry roadmaps, U.S. government competitiveness initiatives, and numerous Bishop Reports on the computer and consumer electronics industries. He is an outspoken supporter of the future of U.S. manufacturing in a global marketplace. John is a graduate of the Wm. Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, and of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. He and his wife Louise, reside in Newark, DE, and Delray Beach, FL.