Scope: APEC 2007, global markets, old-school printing
Edited by Ron Wilson -- EDN, January 18, 2007
Looking Ahead... To analog versus digital at APEC 2007
The 22nd annual APEC (Applied Power Electronics Conference) kicks off at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, CA, on Feb 25. Billed as the must-attend conference for anyone involved in power electronics, APEC spans a range from the traditional and mature to the near-science-fiction in the power arena. Keynotes, for example, will include Texas Instruments fellow Bob Mammano on the history of power electronics, Fairchild Semiconductor President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Thompson on the future of power semiconductors, and, if that's not futuristic enough for you, Vatche Vorperian from CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on "Power Electronics at the Extremes of Possibility." Paper sessions will cover a similar range, this year giving center stage to a faceoff between digital and analog control of power circuits.
Looking Back
... At document-quality printing
A solenoid-operated slave typewriter permits rapid recording of business and instrument data transmitted to it, providing written records at up to 11 characters per second. Produced by Underwood Corp, the slave machine is equipped with solenoids located in a compact control unit beneath the keyboard. Each solenoid depresses its associated key in response to impulses received through two miniature Cannon connector plugs for each solenoid. A feedback switch supplies a governing pulse back to the transmitting instrument to ensure proper coordination on character, space, backspace, carriage-return, and tab key actuation. Solenoid resistance is 1000Ω, and inductance is 0.77H at 100V dc and 100-mA drive.
—Electrical Design News, January 1957
Looking around
... At the growing interest in developing-country electronics
Most of us still think of personal electronics as an industrialized-world phenomenon: a market that requires an affluent middle class. But, as the affluent markets for high-end electronic gear begin to saturate—as they are apparently beginning to do—more and more attention is turning to electronics for the still-developing world. The emergence of microfinance and the runaway success of, for example, cellular-service providers in Africa, have demonstrated that people with little income can still obtain and benefit from cell phones, computers, Internet connections, and media players. More important for vendors, they can make money providing these things. So, 2007 will be a year of low-end platforms, particularly in cellular handsets and Internet-capable PCs. These devices may provide some of the most interesting design challenges of the decade.
