The opportunities for gaining competitive advantage in the global dc-dc converter market are changing in important ways. According to the 11th edition of Darnell’s report on “Worldwide DC-DC Converter Module Forecasts,” digital control, digital power management and the ability to adapt to changing system power architectures are replacing efficiency improvements and lower prices as the key opportunities for gaining competitive advantage and deriving increased value-added for the next five years.
The overall dc-dc converter market is projected to grow at a healthy rate, growing to about $4.3 billion by 2016. Over the recent past, dc-dc converters have become increasingly efficient and higher levels of integration have lead to lower parts counts and lower costs. In both cases, dc-dc module designers have reached an era of significantly decreasing opportunities for either significant efficiency improvements or significantly lower costs.