According to an IHS report, the demand for a wide range of products from companies across various industries will have a substantial impact on the embedded board market in the IoT era. Embedded Linux and Android solutions are expected to transform key growth markets with highly diversified IoT and industrial applications. However, the lack of standards on both the software and hardware sides, along with a weak ecosystem in the embedded market for Linux or Android-based solutions, means that the Embedded Linux & Android Alliance (ELAA) is poised to drive the adoption of a standardized board with an open and unified architecture for Linux and Android operating systems in industrial embedded applications.
ELAA's unified hardware and BSP members will provide the ELAA Unified Development Platform with hardware products and a BSP that will form its core value proposition. Other members will provide their own motherboards and supporting peripherals, as well as hardware and software services tailored to the ELAA Unified Development Platform for differentiation from Linux or Android. The ecosystem values that ELAA members aim to offer customers are: faster time to market, minimal development risk, extensive software offerings, and compatible peripheral integration. Through co-business development and cross-marketing opportunities within the ELAA ecosystem, the market will expand and thrive.
Currently, ELAA has 10 founding members in the value chain offering:
- Unified hardware and BSP: Advantech, AIMobile
- Motherboards, peripherals, custom hardware services: Advantech, Retronix, ThunderSoft
- Software solutions and services: AIMobile, ArcherMind, Canonical, Lineo, Retronix, RTSoft, ThunderSoft, Timesys, Witekio
In addition, several prototype models have been integrated, taking advantage of ELAA resources (see table)
During the recent Embedded World, ELAA showcased its NXP platforms and plans to launch several SoC solutions in the second half of 2017. ELAA is also expected to offer more software solutions and announce the addition of more partners. Furthermore, a joint marketing campaign is underway in Taiwan, Japan, and China following Embedded World.
Embedded Linux and Android are projected to experience rapid growth, with increasingly diverse applications expected in gaming, medicine, automotive, M2M, and IoT.
