Advanced consumer devices, factory automation and automotive electronics are driving forward. While the last two areas aren't in the typical engineer's everyday vocabulary, many products for those applications arrive every month. A lot of them require 10 or more motors, many custom, for some sort of mechanical function.

So more system designers are likely to run into the big manufacturing picture, which means calling on new tools for quick, reliable and total prototyping. Those tools include design programs found on the Web, complete developmental boards and full design support from the vendor to allow the systems designer to tie together the analog and digital, and the hardware and software, parts of the system.

That idea is hardly new to power; in fact, it's part and parcel of it. Like power supplies, custom MOSFET designs, power management and thermal management before them, motor-IC applications are suddenly here in force, bearing much more exacting requirements than ever before. The time-to-market factor is also more critical now. As with many areas of power, motor control has become a lot more than simply buying an IC for a one-shot application.

Sometimes you can watch something intensely over a long time and still miss the point. In the past, I have often turned a deaf ear to those pontificating a "one-stop shop" or "systems approach" solution to just about anything. It simply sounded too much like a politician's commercial: a lot of generalities, but little substance.

Maybe that's because many of the companies making such claims really didn't have the resources. But if you think about it, integration is most often a universal engineering goal.

Those best-suited to making it happen in motor-control ICs will need a strong MOSFET portfolio, deep experience in analog and digital IC technologies, and the wisdom to write efficient (software) algorithms.

While there aren't too many companies with all the right stuff, there are still enough of them right now to underwrite an industry that's going to be more important to everyone in short order.