FPGAs to dominate medical semi market, says report

The report projects market revenue to reach $1.95 billion in 2008. With buyers viewing the expensive, high-end imaging instruments such as ultrasound systems and magnetic resonance imaging scanners as long-term investments, semiconductor vendors will have do develop regular upgrades and cut time-to-market for these customers.

Regular upgrades need a flexible architecture, and so the FPGA is likely to dominate. FPGAs expect to be among the fastest-growing segments, having already started to replace some other technologies, the study said.

“FPGAs are reprogrammable, flexible, and reusable since any upgrade involves merely a change of software. This gives it a major advantage over, for instance, ASICs, since ASIC vendors find it difficult to meet frequent upgrade demands from medical imaging modality vendors,” said analyst Swaminathan Srinivasan.