North America Smart Factory Market Trends

Market Trends of North America Smart Factory Industry

Semiconductor Industry is Observing a Significant Growth

• The electronics industry in the region is growing at a steady pace and holds a prominent share in a number of enterprises operating in the design and fabless space. According to the US Census Bureau, the revenue of the semiconductors and other electronic components sector is expected to reach USD 105.16 billion by 2023.
• Moreover, the region commands significant demand for smartphones and consumer electronics, which is driving demand for the studied market. According to Ericsson, smartphone subscription is expected to reach 360 million by 2025, augmented by the demand from 5G.
• Additionally, the increasing demand for smart wearables in the region is spearheading the demand for semiconductors in the region. By 2022, the number of connected wearable devices in North America is expected to reach USD 439 million, according to Cisco Systems. Such developments are augmenting demand for the market in the region.
• According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the semiconductor industry directly employs nearly a quarter of a million workers in the United States. The United States is also home to some of the world's major automotive players, who are investing in electric vehicles and in the self-driving potential of cars, which demand high-performance ICs. This is one of the major factors to drive demand for the semiconductors silicon wafers market.​ For instance, in December 2020, Group14 Technologies, a global provider of silicon-carbon composite materials for lithium-ion applications, secured USD 17 million in Series B funding led by SK Materials.
• The pandemic has been brutally bad for many people and industries in the United States, but the semiconductor industry has been one of the only bright spots. That translates to additional demand for chips of all sorts, which increased the pressure on a supply chain that was already running as fast as it could. Thus, driving market players to invest in product development.

Communication is One of the Segment Driving the Market

• Wired communication tends to have a relatively low degree of distortion when delivering information from a particular source to a destination. For instance, receiving digitally encoded data from a wired analog to digital converter, sent to a single digital controller at a fixed rate of 8 kbit/second, occurs with little data loss and distortion, i.e., only the least significant bits tend to have errors. In addition, there are wired networking protocols that aim to achieve a relatively constant delay profile by using a token to control access to the network, such as PROFIBUS-DP and ControlNet.
• For instance, FieldComm Group, PI (Profibus & Profinet International), and ODAVA are working together to promote developments for Industrial Ethernet. It is aimed to expand the use of EtherNet/IP, HART-IP, and PROFINET into hazardous locations in the process industry, leveraging the work currently underway in the IEEE 802.3.cg.
• Wireless networks are advancing in ways that are driving many possibilities for industrial automation. The idea of wireless industrial automation has long been an unachievable goal for many organizations, but 5G is starting to make this goal a reality. Companies are already beginning to deploy private 5G networks within plants and are seeing an increase in performance, low latency, determinism, and reliability.
• For instance, Corning and Verizon have installed a 5G Ultra-Wideband service in Corning’s fiber optic cable manufacturing facility in Hickory, United States. Corning will use Verizon’s 5G technology to test the application of 5G to enhance functions, such as factory automation and quality assurance, in one of the most extensive fiber optic cable manufacturing facilities in the world.
• Individual devices incorporating wireless communication are generally costlier than wired networks. However, this increased upfront cost offset in multiple ways. Wireless devices often prove to be the most cost-effective option over the long run, owing to factors such as saving the cost of running cabling through a production area.