13. Februar 2025

Trends and Innovations in the Electronics Industry - Review of 2024 and Outlook for 2025

Interview with ProMik's CEO: Highlights 2024, Partnerships, Challenges and Future Strategies for 2025

Wolf Erdmann was appointed CEO of ProMik Programmiersysteme für die Mikroelektronik GmbH last year and is thus responsible for both the strategic and operational management of the business. The company, which is known as a technology leader for flash programming, test solutions and cybersecurity in electronics manufacturing, held its own against market-related challenges in 2024 and is aiming for further success in the coming year. In this interview, you can read more about the past year at ProMik and the future plans of the company as it continues to grow.

Review of the Year 2024

How would you summarize the year 2024 for ProMik? What highlights and successes do you particularly remember?

2024 was a demanding year with many challenges and changes. At ProMik, there was the handover from the owner-managed company to the new owners. Maintaining the company structure, market position and culture is something that needed to remain constant during the handover. We succeeded in doing this very well. 

We were able to recruit further specialists for ProMik in order to expand our strategic areas in testing. New products and software test solutions were developed for the market as a result. The Boundary Scan, which opens up new possibilities for our customers and solves the challenges of previous market solutions, deserves special mention. Internally, we have introduced project management in order to professionally implement the growing number of customer solutions. In addition to these measures, the sales department was realigned in order to adapt to the changing market situation in the long term.

Were there any new partnerships or customer relationships that were particularly groundbreaking for ProMik 2024?

In addition to expanding sales, the focus was on strategically expanding partnerships. This has already had a positive effect in the current year, both in terms of feedback from our European customers and from local customers. We also began to expand further partnerships with sales representatives, integrators and partners. With JOT Automation, for example, we have gained a strategically important partner with whom we are developing technological solutions for our joint customers. There is also a focus on further expanding the partnership with our sales representatives. This will be a key component of our growth in 2025. From a technological perspective, we have gained partners in Asia to ensure access to the local Semicon industry.

Which developments or trends in the electronics industry did you find particularly relevant or surprising in 2024?

We are used to the electronics industry being very dynamic and are always prepared to deal flexibly with new requirements. What we are observing, particularly in the automotive supply industry, is that the market weakness is manifesting itself as an “offset” in the market. This means that we will have to adapt to new market structures with new customers in the future.

What impact did global changes have on the German electronics industry in 2024 and how did ProMik respond successfully?

As already mentioned, we need to react even more flexibly to the different requirements and must not commit ourselves to a single strategy. We are seeing a decoupling of the markets between Asia, Mexico and the USA. The market in Europe will increasingly change with new providers. This upheaval can already be seen today in the automotive industry. New suppliers in Asia are not only breaking new ground technologically. They are not relying exclusively on traditional supply chains. New strategies, alliances and a new infrastructure are emerging. This will also have an increasing impact on us in Europe in the coming years.

Outlook on 2025

How does ProMik plan to further expand its leading position in the electronics industry? Which markets or technologies are particularly interesting for 2025?

As ProMik, we will adapt strategically to the new challenges. Factors such as flexibility, technological leadership and consistency play an important role here. Our key market of the automotive industry will continue to be a central pillar of our strategy. However, we are already preparing for the upcoming changes by establishing and expanding the new structures in our existing market. Electronics, and above all intelligent electronics, will play an even more important role in the future. ProMik's technology is ideally prepared for this and is a key factor in all industry segments. We are increasingly seeing the need for cyber security, for which we already occupy a key position today. SMART Testing will support conventional test procedures and also provide a stand-alone way to flexibly and intelligently replace conventional expensive tests. These are the areas we are already working on today and can already offer solutions for our customers.

What technological challenges do you see in flash programming and in the area of test solutions for 2025? How does ProMik intend to address these?

Overall, we see the challenge that electronics are becoming more intelligent and the amount of data is constantly increasing. On the other hand, the individualization of software, driven by end customers, has a strong influence on electronics production. Europe is not yet prepared for the speed of implementation, which gives Asia in particular a head start. We have already addressed these challenges and anchored them in our technology roadmap. We recently filed a patent application to process even larger volumes of data in even less time. This enables us to write data to devices at up to 300 MB/sec. Even though the devices are already built and closed. This allows individual software to be written to the device very late in the process and enables our customers to react flexibly and cost-effectively to changing software versions.

We are also continuously expanding our range of test solutions. The exciting thing is that we can implement all of this on our existing hardware platform.

How does ProMik plan to grow and offer its customers added value in what remains a challenging economic environment?

Of course, we are also gradually expanding our range of hardware products. We are planning to expand our range of products in order to be able to respond even better to the requirements of other industries. We are also currently completing our range of products and services in order to be a strong partner for our customers as a turnkey supplier for flash, end-of-line testing, boundary scan and cyber security.

When you look to the year 2025: What message would you like to send to your customers, partners and employees?

2025 will be another year in which we will be looking at a changing and, from a European perspective, difficult market. It can be assumed that the market will not change significantly in 2025 and that the situation will remain difficult for many suppliers and system partners. This applies above all to the automotive industry and its suppliers in Europe. We must face this situation head on and find solutions. Above all, however, it is important to constantly expand our know-how in order to be able to offer a unique technological selling point. Above all, the area of software and solutions will be a focal point for future success. We at ProMik are well prepared for this. Our founders recognized this early on and still support us today in making this an essential part of the success further on.

 

Start the year 2025 with ProMik as your flash and test partner and find out today how we can realize your project Contact.