What with an estimated 30 million new vehicles sold yearly, more than 20 motors in the typical vehicle, and motors accounting for what's been said to consume half the electrical energy we use daily, one might have expected hot activity among vendors going back quite a ways. But most companies with any capability at all, especially in the power management and IC business, haven't steered there. One reason is better and more timely returns in today's wireless and portable markets.

Automotive apps simply have longer development times, which run up against relatively short product lifetimes due to ever-changing technology, and ultimately reflect in lower profit margins. So it's easy to see why even some of the giants in the best position to put a greater proportion of their effort into motors and automotives tend to proceed conservatively.

Of course, the chip (or even chip set) idea per se isn't what anyone would term revolutionary. Several major vendors that have had an automotive bent for a long time, are intertwined in the business of Hall-effect sensors as well as general motor-control ICs, and have done well.

Nor do we suggest that efforts elsewhere aren't, or won't be, ramping up as we speak. But sometimes we witness subtle changes that point the way to bigger things, and this looks to be the case here. What appears different now is the set of circumstances.

Certainly, the industry's traditional approach to automotives, by and large, hasn't changed. But there's been unexpected and unprecedented company consolidation in the past few years, and that requires a customary planning period. During that time, companies can't always maintain, or guarantee, their road map schedules. Into that time slot comes a company (in this case IR, shedding its image as just a discrete power device manufacturer) with the patience to wait for automotives, and a hypothetically flexible, reliable chip set that they can mass-produce. Whether chip sets ultimately impact on Hall-effect sensors/drivers is anyone's guess, but we'd be surprised if it didn't shake up the industry a bit.