Electronics Weekly has been overwhelmed with the quality and calibre of entries for its inaugural Women Leaders in Electronics Awards. The nominations have been whittled down to the following shortlists in each category. Electronics Engineer of the Year sponsored by Samtec Daniela Cavallaro, STMicroelectronics Karen Craigmyle, Celestia UK Lily Petrova, ipTEST Mano Chitra, LoMaRe Technologies, London Samrudhi Inamdar, Brunel University ...

This year was the first post-covid APEC, attracting 6,100 visitors (up from 5,800 in 2019). Report by Caroline Hayes. Integration and miniaturisation were key themes and Silanna Semiconductor introduced the SZ1200 to its CO2 Smart Power family of AC-DC and DC-DC converters. The active clamp flyback controller integrates adaptive digital PWM control with a 700V primary GaN fet, X capacitor ...

Ethernet-based industrial communications is not a far-off, unattainable vision of factory and process automation. It is being adopted at a rapid pace, says Vaibhav Desai. The cost, complexity and scalability challenges of Ethernet-based communications mean that serial interfaces are still the standard for wired communications. This is understandable, given the cost-effectiveness and reliability of IO-Link and RS-485. Design and software ...

Remote operations may have been accelerated by the pandemic, but they were already well established to improve productivity and safety, says Andrea Vinci. With engineers frequently around hazardous equipment such as dynamometers, any measures to remove personnel from risk are welcome. Meanwhile, the skills shortage in engineering continues to bite. Retaining experience and knowledge while training a new generation is ...

This year is the time for ultra-wideband to rise and shine, says Jean-Christophe Doucet. Ultra-wideband (UWB) was once considered a niche, but intriguing alternative to incumbent presence detection and tracking technologies, including radio frequency identification, localisation trackers and infrared sensors. Despite its advantages, the industry overlooked UWB until recently. Experts now project that UWB implementation will grow significantly. They estimate ...

Key areas where flexible electronics are having a commercial impact are examined by Liam Critchley, who finds smaller companies are carving their own industry niches. The growth of advanced fabrication methods, small-scale nanomaterials and the ability to embed flexible circuitry and components into polymeric hosts have given rise to flexible electronics with advanced functionalities. This has become a popular way ...

The most important aspect to consider in time-of-flight technology is the drastic change in embedded vision technology, says Maharajan Veerabahu. From the 1970s when it was first theorised to its status today, the leaps in technology have blazed a new era in advanced imaging for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). The most common uses of the AMRs are in industrial warehouses, ...

For RF inductor selection, José Martos and Heinz Zenkner stress the importance of evaluating inductance, natural resonant frequency, quality, DC resistance and rated current for high-frequency applications. High frequency inductors are used in a variety of industries, from consumer products to highly specialised scientific applications. Typical functions include resonance tuning, impedance matching, filtering and attenuation of high frequency overshoots in ...

The choice of battery for an application is critical. It affects the bill of materials and product lifetime cost, says Björn Rosqvist. Consider a battery-powered remote sensor. The cost of its battery is usually small compared with the overall product cost, but then think about the cost of replacing that battery. For wireless sensors deployed in remote areas, used for ...

Transient gate overvoltage ringing during turn-on is a common phenomenon in GaN-based power converters, but a lifetime equation can account for all bias conditions with respective fractional lifetime, say Shengke Zhang, Han Gao and Siddhesh Gajare. Gate overvoltage spikes during device turn-on transients are commonly observed in GaN HEMTs (high electron mobility transistors) under high frequency, fast-switching conversion applications. The ...