The electronics industry has spent the past few years learning hard lessons about supply chains. Component shortages have idled production lines, delayed product launches and forced engineers to scramble for alternatives. A single missing chip can halt an entire manufacturing run. What seemed like a rare problem became a persistent reality and companies realised that traditional approaches to hardware design left them dangerously exposed.
The response has been varied. Some manufacturers stockpiled parts – others diversified suppliers or redesigned products on the fly – but a quieter shift has been gaining momentum: the move towards System on Module (SoM) architecture.
Consolidation as a strategy
SoM is not new, but the value of this approach in uncertain times is finally being recognised. Instead of populating boards with hundreds of individual components, manufacturers are embedding entire subsystems into compact, pre-built modules.
SoM vendors take responsibility for component sourcing and availability. Their purchasing power typically exceeds that of individual customers by orders of magnitude. When chip allocations tighten, the companies buying thousands of units secure supply first. By relying on a SoM vendor, manufacturers effectively borrow that purchasing muscle, reducing their exposure to shortages without negotiating directly with semiconductor foundries.
One module often replaces 200 to 400 discrete components. It arrives pre-built, pre-tested and approved. That consolidation removes hundreds of stock purchases, hundreds of pick and place operations and hundreds of potential manufacturing points of failure as well as greatly reducing the complexity of the carrier boards design. If an engineer spends many more hours designing a discrete custom board and sources each part separately, any one of those parts can become unavailable. Production stops until a substitute is found, tested and qualified. With a SoM, the complexity moves upstream and is managed by the SoM vendor.
Flexibility through standardisation
The real advantage appears when many SoMs share a common footprint. If one variant becomes scarce, another can be dropped in without redesigning the carrier board. Different CPU options, memory configurations or connectivity features can occupy the same physical space. This interchangeability turns what would have been a crisis into a simple substitution. Products stay in production. Timelines hold.
Lifecycle management is also handled at the module level. When a component inside a SoM reaches its end-of-life, the vendor addresses it. To the SoM customer, these changes require no hardware or software redesign effort on their side and introduce no performance loss. Customers avoid the cycle of part obsolescence that plagues chip-down designs.
Because different SoM variants can share the same board design, companies can keep smaller inventories and address multiple end product requirements to meet changing market demands. Multiple end product variants can be supported on one base board simply by fitting a high-performance module for one product line and a lower-cost, lower performance variant with a common footprint for another.
The volume advantage
Bulk purchasing by SoM makers ensures a steady pipeline of parts. Lower volume chip-down designs purchasing fewer units have less purchasing power and are therefore more likely to face supply chain interruptions when allocation tightens. Volume buyers get priority. These vendors operate at that scale by default, which means their customers benefit from continuity even when the broader market is constrained.
However, certain sectors face unique demands. Medical devices often require 10 years or more of spare-part availability to comply with regulations and support long product lifecycles. A SoM with longevity guarantees to meet this requirement by maintaining support and supply over the long term. A hospital cannot afford to replace an installed base of equipment because a single component is no longer available.
Beyond hardware
Security and functional updates, remote management and testing features add another layer of resilience. Fleets of deployed devices can be kept compliant and operational even during disruptions. A medical monitor in a remote clinic or an industrial controller in a factory does not need to be recalled for a firmware update. It can be patched remotely, reducing downtime and logistical strain and this is of particular importance given the upcoming introduction of the mandatory Cyber Resilience Act which will be required to sell any product within the European Union from 2027.
Vendor lock-in remains a concern, but it can be managed. Choosing a SoM with accessible source code and mainstream operating systems protects against being stranded if a supplier exits the market. Connectivity features also matter. Standard wired and wireless interfaces are a given, but the adoption of eSIM and iSIM technology in SoMs with cellular connectivity reduces dependence on physical SIM cards. Swapping modules becomes easier. Geographic deployment becomes simpler.
A new model
The shift to SoM is not about abandoning custom design. It’s about prioritising the use of valuable engineering resources. For companies that need to differentiate on software, user experience or application logic, offloading the ever-increasing hardware complexity to a proven module makes sense. The supply chain becomes less fragile. Time to market shrinks. Risk drops.
What emerges is a model where resilience is built in rather than bolted on. Instead of reacting to shortages, companies design around them. Instead of hoping suppliers stay solvent, they choose partners with staying power and proven innovation. The conversation moves from firefighting to planning for success. That shift, more than any single technical advantage, is why SoM architecture is gaining ground.
About the author:
Derek Stewart, Business Development Engineer at Solsta
