According to Forward Concepts' president and principal analyst, Will Strauss, the author of the study, "There is a fundamental technological shift taking place in the electronics industry. It is moving from the personal computer era to a new era driven by connectivity and multimedia. And, DSP technology is central to both multimedia implementation and those connections--both wired and wireless. This is an in-depth study of both the dynamics and the metrics of the market for DSP-centric ICs."

Strauss added, "The general-purpose programmable DSP market is the best known and is dominated by four companies: Agere, Analog Devices, Motorola SPS, and Texas Instruments. The embedded DSP market, on the other hand, is served by over 100 chip vendors providing DSP technology in the form of ASSPs, ASICs, FPGAs, RISC/DSP combos, DSP-enhanced MPUs, DSP-enhanced RISC cores, and even DSP state machines. These embedded DSP markets are dominated by companies like Qualcomm, Broadcom, Infineon and Conexant, but many less-well-known companies also serve this market segment." The report profiles the DSP market stance of these companies among the 101 chip and IP vendors described in the study.

The study concludes that the general-purpose DSP market is dominated by communications applications, with cellular being the biggest. The embedded DSP market, however, is dominated by consumer applications like DVD players and recorders, set top boxes, A/V receivers, MP3 players and digital still cameras. But, it also includes embedded DSP in communications chips for GbE LAN PHYs, WLAN and Bluetooth basebands as well as DSL and cable modems. New, emerging DSP-centric markets like DAB and HDTV are also included in the report. The forecast horizon for all market segments is from 2002 through 2007. For more information, visit www.fwdconcepts.com/Pages/DSPembed.htm