Growing interest and investment in and funding for improved building energy management will help fuel demand for products and applications using IEEE 802.15.4 semiconductors.
Over the next five years, 802.15.4 chipset shipments will underpin a host of wireless sensor networks (WSN) across home, building and industrial building automation, as well as Advanced Meter Infrastructures. This will help fuel the growth of the 802.15.4 chipset WSNs market from just over $10 M in 2008 to nearly $155 M in 2014, a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 87.9 percent over the period.
To date, the 802.15.4 market has grown steadily, based on proprietary point-to-point solutions and some ZigBee-based AMI infrastructure trials. According to ABI Research Principal Analyst Jonathan Collins, “With growing interest in the potential for wireless sensor networks in commercial building automation and management systems as well as smaller residential deployments, wireless is set to become a key development in the transition to smart energy management.”
ZigBee – just one of a myriad communication protocols to leverage 802.15.4 silicon – is already the target of a great deal of investment for building management systems in residential and commercial building markets, with a range of projects and specifications leveraging the specification.
“There is increasing emphasis on energy management for a host of reasons such as environmental concerns, cost cutting and assistance from funding grants and awards,” says Collins. ”The availability of standardized 802.15.4 semiconductors to support widespread availability and support for WSNs to support these projects will help strengthen demand further.”
The growth of 802.15.4 will underpin a new generation of WSNs, and adoption for building and energy management will help shift demand for 802.15.4 ICs to WSN deployments. In 2008, point-to-point and proprietary use of 802.15.4 ICs represented 65 percent of the market. By 2014 that will have fallen to 54 percent.
”The 802.15.4 Chipset Market” provides insight into 802.15.4 IC market dynamics and opportunities, and includes forecast data for unit shipments, average selling prices and revenue to 2014. Additionally, it highlights the leading early adopter vertical markets, and forecasts 802.15.4 adoption among several different wireless sensor network verticals.
It is part of four ABI Research Services: M2M, Short-Range Wireless, Semiconductors and Wireless Sensor Networks.
