Open Standards Provide a Path to Innovation

Standards related to electronic devices guarantee interoperability and expands market opportunity for high-volume production that reduces cost and encourages collaboration as well as competition to develop the most effective solution.

A universe of standards plays a critical role in the complex world we live in. Imagine having different plugs on your toaster and coffee maker, or if each state distributed a different AC or DC voltage to the home. How would you feel if the lack of safety standards, such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), could turn your hair dryer into a blowtorch? Standards bring order to what would otherwise be chaos. International standards ensure a level of quality and safety enabling the rise of global commerce.

Standards related to electronic devices guarantee interoperability and expand market opportunity for high-volume production that reduces cost and encourages collaboration as well as competition to develop the most effective solution.

Standards writing organizations such as IEEE, ISO, and VITA have been at the forefront of creating standards and specifications that support the adoption of rapidly evolving technology.

It has not always been that way. In the past, standards were often viewed as a hindrance to innovation. Some equipment manufacturers felt that designing a system using components defined in an industry standard limited their ability to develop and introduce advanced technology. New standards often took years to propose, debate, review, and publish. The final standard often represented a compromise between the interests of competitors who could dominate the writing process. Updating an obsolete standard could take years, often falling behind quickly advancing technology.

In some cases, a standards group would select an existing or proposed interface that was based on a patent owned by a specific manufacturer. The manufacturer was free to charge exorbitant licensing fees and share only sufficient dimensional information to allow mechanical intermatability. High-speed interfaces often demand tightly controlled impedance to guarantee interoperability. Without access to internal dimensions and material specifications, electrical performance could not be guaranteed. In some cases, equipment manufacturers were willing to design in proprietary components to gain a competitive edge but this could expose them to price hikes and supply chain interruptions.

Some connector manufacturers would tool a new connector requested by a large OEM, promising volume purchases as the interface became a defacto industry standard. As the cost to develop, design, and tool state of the art interconnects escalated, tooling single customer specials becomes less attractive.

The Kilo 360 from Omnetics Connector Corporation is an example of a new connector that was developed to provide intermatability with the miniaturized 38999 circular connector with double start threads.

As performance requirements have increased and time-to-market design cycles have shortened, demand for components that feature documented and repeatable performance, intermateable/interoperability, and multiple tooled competitive sources has grown.

The rise of “open” standards expanded the movement toward the use of standardized components while baking in the best aspects of traditional standards. Key features include:

• Open industry standards and specifications are publicly available and often free of licensing fees. If a licensing fee is charged it must be “reasonable and non-discriminatory” (RAND)
• They may be the result of collaborative development between representatives of manufacturers, government, academia, and other interested parties.
• They promote interoperability to assure products from competitive suppliers work seamlessly together.
• They are vendor neutral, favoring no supplier or technology.
• They encourage the creation of a multi-source supply chain at competitive prices.
• They allow adaptation to create features and competitive improvements while maintaining compatibility.
• Open standards enable design and production of better products in less time.
• The use of open standards prevents lock-in to a single vendor.

Open standards are created, maintained and updated by an expanding roster of standards organizations such as trade associations, industry alliances, consortiums, foundations, multi-source agreements, special interest groups and implementers forums. These groups promote standards adoption and anticipate future performance requirements to keep the standard relevant as well as provide a mechanism for verifying product performance to the standard. Standards that are upgraded to enhanced performance are often designed to maintain backward compatibility to minimize obsolescence.

Until 2024, when the European Union began to require the use of the standard USB Type-C connector, a wide range of USB interfaces were in use across peripherals and consumer devices. (Shown: Attend’s USB4 Gen3 Type C R/A Receptacle)

The last 10 years have seen the introduction of many open standards related to electronic devices, many of which target a particular industry segment or application. For instance, Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectors were originally focused on interconnects between business and consumer computers but a continuous stream of upgrades including higher speed and smaller connector profiles have greatly expanded applications.

VITA standards are developed to support embedded computers in aerospace, defense, and industrial automation. Bluetooth is a short-range wireless communication protocol found in a host of consumer products. InfiniBand is a high-performance, low latency networking standard commonly found in supercomputers and High-Performance computing. Compute Express Link (CXL) is specifically designed for CPU-to-device and CPU-to-memory connections in data centers.

Standards organizations such as Ethernet Alliance (IEEE 802.3), CXL Consortium, and the PCIe Special Interest Group have recognized the mandate to anticipate future industry requirements and have been constantly upgrading their standards to satisfy demand for increasing performance.  The most recent roadmap of the PCIe Special Interest Group includes PCIe 7.0 which is slated to deliver up to 512 Gb/s while reducing power consumption.

PCI Express® 7.0 Specification & Status

The Ethernet Alliance has published a roadmap targeting 1.6 Tb Ethernet. Source: PCI-SIG

Growth of open standards has proliferated among organizations focused on software and system level architecture. The Open Mobile Alliance creates open standards and specifications for interoperable mobile services. The Open Compute Project (OCP) concentrates on specifying efficient hardware technology to support the growing infrastructure demands of data centers and sharing industry best practices among companies. They recently expanded their focus to include emerging Chiplet design and manufacturing services.

Matter is an open-source standard designed to simplify the creation of compatible smart home devices. The OpenZR+ MSA creates interoperability specifications which are designed to expand available applications for coherent solutions in small form factor pluggables. The Open19 group recently expanded its mission by collaboration with the Sustainable and Scalable Infrastructure Alliance, which provides open community standards and best practice ideas for data centers, promoting net zero and eliminating waste of energy and materials.

Unlike formal standards, open-source software is publicly available under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the right to use, study, change, and distribute software and its source code to anyone. This allows a decentralized community of developers to collaborate and jointly benefit from the resulting features that then become publicly available. Firefox and Open Office are examples of open-source software.

Although traditional military and aerospace connectors are commonly used in a broad range of applications, the standards that define them are not generally considered “open.” Military standards may be similar to open standards but differ in several ways.

• Standard military connectors are created primarily by government entities that may not include defense contractors or connector manufacturers and may lack the transparency seen in the creation of open standards.
• Connectors defined by a military specification are often highly specialized to support specific defense applications. Each branch of the military has different performance and environmental objectives.
• Compliance to military specifications is not optional for defense contractors while the use of open standards is an option for commercial OEMs.

Efforts to modernize and streamline the creation of military specifications has resulted in the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium and the Modular Open Standard Architecture (MOSA).  Both are directed toward the development of chassis platforms for military and rugged environment resistant electronic equipment.  SOSA is a tightly defined specification that features high performance and interoperability but includes many design restrictions. MOSA is less restrictive and is more focused on the ability to “just make it work.” Both incorporate RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) license fees.

The rise of open standards introduces some disadvantages that require consideration by potential users.

• The consensus-driven process involving many diverse interests can get bogged down, slowing the adoption of new technology.
• Products defined by an open specification may quickly attract many low-cost global suppliers, commoditizing the product and limiting the ability to differentiate features as well as achieve profitability. Suppliers who have committed to connectors defined by a standard have found success by tooling the interface early and capturing major market share, making entry by others less attractive
• A supplier may not want to make propriatory information embedded in a patent available to competitors.
• Low profitability may discourage adequate vendor support, especially from offshore suppliers.
• Publicly available specifications can be analyzed to extract useful technology by competitive international governments. China has been accused of stealing advanced U.S. technology to accelerate development of competitive products.
• The development of a new open standard may be overly influenced by large stakeholders that may favor their individual business interests.

Given the proliferation of new open standards organizations and broad adoption, it appears that open standards will continue to grow and dominate the electronic device and equipment industry for years into the future.

Look for Bob Hult’s upcoming review of DesignCon 2025 in February, and read his high-speed coverage, Tech Trends series, and more show reports in his Connector Supplier archives.

Like this article? Check out our other Standards, Mil/Aero Market articles, and our 2024 Article Archives.

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