The synthetic instrumentation test equipment market is in its early stages of development, according to Frost & Sullivan. Although the SI market has several drivers, it also witnesses several restraints and challenges. The market potential is immense, but it will take significantly more commercial end users’ awareness of the benefits before it will grow.

Perhaps due to the impact of the ongoing war in Iraq and the threat of global terrorism, the adoption of synthetic instrumentation (SI) testing equipment is set to experience healthy growth, according to new research from Frost & Sullivan. In fact, the industry is squarely focused in the defense and aerospace industry and, therefore, has the potential to reach $500 million by 2013, according to the report.

The market earned revenues between $50 and $80 million just last year.

Released by Frost & Sullivan this week, the “World Synthetic Instrumentation Test Equipment Market” report’s details indicate that the benefits yielded by synthetic instrumentation test equipment are quite substantial and include speed, rapid reconfiguration and increased longevity. In addition:

Individual pieces of an SI system can be easily optimized, for greater throughput, and SI instruments can be customized to fit any production line. This is especially important for industries where technology changes quickly, such as communications, automotive and consumer electronics.

All together, the benefits seem to make SI test equipment ideal for commercial use.

Frost & Sullivan Research analysts S. Vidyasankar and Mark Holler have also concluded there are only a handful of “complete solution providers and system integrators” in the market, probably due to the fact that a full-on SI solution could cost anywhere from $200,000 to $700,000, depending on its features and applications. These high costs clearly have the potential to turn away other users who might be interested in these systems.

“The lack of competition in the SI test equipment market is serving as a hindrance to its acceptance in the commercial market,” said Holler and Vidyasankar. “The awareness level in the commercial industry also needs to increase for SI to realize its potential.”

To understand why the SI solution costs so much, it’s necessary to understand its inner-workings. According to this RF Design white paper, SI synthesizes the stimulus and/or measurement functionality found in traditional instruments by using “a combination of core hardware and software building blocks that are employed in a modular open architecture environment.

“SI is a paradigm shift that forever changes the way automatic test systems (ATS) are designed, built, fielded and supported.”

I suppose if we are truly talking about an industry-wide sea change from early days of adoption, it stands to reason that the technology itself still needs to mature, which in turn should lower the price of investing in such capabilities. And considering that SI is intended to be a user-friendly tool, an increasing number of companies should then be lining up for this stuff:

SI is based on the concept that most stimulus and measurement functions can be implemented in software with “core” SI hardware and software components. These components include frequency up-converters and down-converters, digital to analog converters.

If design engineers’ and manufacturers’ test and measurement (T&M) dependency continues to intensify, so too will the need to identify new test challenges and problems, according to Electronic Design:

The guys who design the latest test equipment hang out on the leading edge of engineering. But what do they use to test their own extreme designs? It’s still an analog world, yet T&M equipment designers create the most far-out proprietary hardware while steadily increasing the amount of software in their designs.

Not surprisingly, synthetic instruments are a main driver toward enabling more robust T&M procedures, according to Electronic Design:

Synthetic instruments break the T&M process down into fundamental building blocks, such as digitizers, up/down converters, and ARB function generation, and assemble them with control software to perform some testing function. The idea is to create ATE or other test systems that can be reconfigured quickly for different tasks.

Electronic Design also says that SI’s major application areas include aerospace and the military, and that the U.S. Department of Defense’s synthetic instrumentation initiative is driving its development.

Frost & Sullivan’s report suggests that SI manufacturers who want to attract commercial customers must work on developing affordable SI solutions that are targeted specifically at commercial applications. As commercial awareness levels increase and the price-to-performance ratio improves, Vidyasankar and Holler note, the SI market has the potential for substantial growth.