Analyze hardware opportunities in Industry 4.0

Now, intelligent manufacturing represented by Industry 4.0 is changing the shape of the future manufacturing industry. In this new manufacturing system, data is a spiritual element and is at the core. However, this does not mean that hardware will be marginalized in Industry 4.0. After all, data still needs to be used as a carrier to present its value in the real world.

Now, intelligent manufacturing represented by Industry 4.0 is changing the shape of the future manufacturing industry. In this new manufacturing system, data is a spiritual element and is at the core. However, this does not mean that hardware will be marginalized in Industry 4.0. After all, data still needs to be used as a carrier to present its value in the real world. Therefore, the rise of "data" in smart manufacturing will also bring a lot of business opportunities to the hardware. Next, from the direction of Industry 4.0 "data flow," we can understand more about the hidden "hard path" of hardware in each link.

Sensing

In industrial control systems, sensors are data collection terminals. They are responsible for converting a large number of non-electrical physicochemical parameters of an industrial site into electrical signals. The system then reads out key data information from them as a basis for control decisions. The dependence of smart manufacturing on data will inevitably stimulate the demand for sensors. In the future, the demand for sensors, such as pressure, displacement, acceleration, angular velocity, temperature, humidity, gas, and photosensitivity, etc., will show an overall improvement.

Another area of ​​concern is the CMOS image sensor market for machine vision core components. According to ICInsights forecast, the global industrial CMOS image sensor market will grow from 396 million dollars in 2015 to 912 million dollars in 2020. In addition, the application of multi-view three-dimensional vision in industrial scenes, the image data that can be collected with the help of image sensors will be more abundant, and the effect will be more significant. Image sensors will also become a “cake” that cannot be overlooked in the industrial sensor market.

interconnection

The data generated by the intelligent manufacturing system needs to be transmitted and shared via a fast and stable network. In the “Industry 4.0 R&D White Paper” of Germany, wireless technology is regarded as a key project for the research of the Industry 4.0 network communication technology. Compared with the traditional wired industrial communication, the wireless interconnection technology has obvious advantages: First, the cost of network construction and maintenance is low. According to the test, the installation and maintenance cost of using the wireless measurement and control system can be reduced by 90%; Second, increase the equipment configuration of the production line. Flexibility, and more in line with the "flexibility" requirements for intelligent manufacturing "mass customization" vision; Third, can meet the needs of diverse networking applications, Mesh, Star and other network deployment needs.

Wireless interconnects and sensing technologies are also moving toward convergence. Wireless sensors with wireless data communication capabilities will also become a new market growth point. Wireless sensor networks can get rid of the shackles of traditional sensor buses, allowing data aggregation to be more flexible and cost-effective. On this basis, sensor products can also be integrated with other technologies such as energy harvesting to form more diversified products and expand the application landscape.

Data decision

The key to Industry 4.0 is to bring data into the cloud for analysis and processing, and to analyze and provide decision-making advice with existing databases. This will affect the demand of industrial applications for data centers. Whether it is the use of public clouds or the construction of private clouds, the increase in the total number of data centers is an inevitable trend. It is estimated that by 2019, the market size of global data center infrastructure equipment will reach 44 billion US dollars.

Data decision

The key to Industry 4.0 is to bring data into the cloud for analysis and processing, and to analyze and provide decision-making advice with existing databases. This will affect the demand of industrial applications for data centers. Whether it is the use of public clouds or the construction of private clouds, the increase in the total number of data centers is an inevitable trend. It is estimated that by 2019, the market size of global data center infrastructure equipment will reach 44 billion US dollars.

In the future, in the face of increasingly heavy data processing tasks, more powerful processors are needed to support the new heterogeneous processor architecture that is on the stage to solve the operational bottleneck encountered by multi-core general-purpose processors. Developers are considering the CPU + GPU mode, the maximum limit of the ability of the GPU in floating-point operations. At the same time, the logic architecture of FPGAs is also attracting attention. FPGAs and general-purpose processors are expected to become the mainstream architecture of data center servers in the future. Server processor market overlord Intel's acquisition of Altera, the world's second largest FPGA vendor, is confirming this trend. Subsequently, Qualcomm also announced that it has formed an alliance with Xilinx, the world's largest FPGA vendor, and Mellanox, forming a market confrontation with Intel.

carried out

After the data is analyzed and processed in the cloud, the proposed decision-making process will be passed back to the execution end, which will cause mechanical actions and form a complete control loop from end to end, from cloud to end. Mechanical movements in the manufacturing industry are all driven by motors, so precise motor control will become the growth point for the birth of Industry 4.0. From the hardware point of view, this will also provide core digital control chips such as MCU, DSP, and FPGA. Casting opportunities.

Industrial robots are an important "existence" in the Industry 4.0 system. It is a more intelligent and comprehensive execution equipment. In 2015, the sales volume of global industrial robots was 240,000 units, and the annual growth rate in the past five years was 15%. The Chinese market is considered to be the area where the next industrial robot will show significant growth. Taking the Chinese market as an example, the annual growth rate of the industrial robot market from 2010 to 2015 reached 35%, with a total of 66,000 units. If this speed develops, it is expected that by 2020 China will account for 40% of the global industrial robot market. Driven by the market, several core components needed for industrial robots - servo systems, speed reducers, and controllers - will also increase at the same time. In particular, in the industrial robot controller market, the industry has gradually realized that the closed system independently designed and developed by robot manufacturers in the past cannot adapt to the rapidly growing market demand. Standardization and openness are becoming a trend, and there are already some independent robotic controls on the market. Device manufacturers have become active. Whether they can use the power of the market to change the ecology of industrial robots is indeed worth watching.

In short, the data-driven Industry 4.0 revolution will not bring a simple linear product iteration to manufacturing, but will be accompanied by new architectures, new products, and new models. Now we just see it. More hardware opportunities still need to deal with the development of the market and continue to explore.

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