An Overview of Rapid System Prototyping Today

The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors [3] predicts chip complexities by the end of this decade silicon of around 1 billion transistors integrated on a single piece of silicon. It will open new frontiers in terms of applications in areas/devices ranging from security systems (e.g. video surveillance), control systems (e.g. automotive control), individual health systems (e.g. hearing aids) to main stream consumer products in such areas as personal communication (e.g. cell phones), personal computing (e.g. PDA), entertainment (e.g. MP3 players), video/photo (e.g. digital still/video cameras) and many more. It can be observed that especially the latter group of main stream consumer products is subject to severe competition between major manufacturers and thus leading to two effects from a consumer’s point of view: