Power Electronics, AI, and the Biggest Show of the Year

­Welcome to the November issue!

But more importantly, it’s here! The biggest show of the year, the grandaddy of all industry events, Munich’s very own electronica! I don’t have to explain to you the significance of this preeminent gathering of engineers, technologists, marketers, and innovators descending upon Trade Fair Center Messe München for four days of announcements, forums, conferences, and more than a little schmoozing (though I suppose I just did), but if you’ve been to this indispensable gala, you know.

And along with 3,000 exhibitors and 70,000 visitors endeavoring to “shape a sustainable, liveable future in the spirit of the All Electric Society,” the PSD crew will be floating around, absorbing as much information and good cheer as humanly possible (and then catching a few winks and doing it three more times).

One of the first topics called out on the official site is AI, and for good reason, as it’s rapidly taking over the industry in the same way wide-bandgap semiconductors once did. And in this month’s issue, I deal with a critical AI topic in “Is AI a Job Killer or Merely the Next Disruptive Technology?”

Every new technology faces the same labor-replacement conundrum, but AI is different because it could finally make artificial systems smarter, quicker, and more efficient than humanity in every way that matters. Industrial automation is one thing, but AI can and will make a number of human tasks completely redundant.

On a different – but no less prescient – topic, we recently held a PSDcast with our old friends at Littelfuse on the cosmic radiation phenomenon and how it’s rapidly increasing in importance.

As I mentioned, while we’ve known about cosmic radiation since the early 20^th century, its relevance shot up in the ‘90s, and today, it can cause a host of issues, from messing with semiconductors' electrical fields to potentially impacting interstellar travel and even accelerating climate change.

Finally, I’d like to touch on one of this month’s articles, a great primer on the history of power electronics called “The Future of Powering the World.”

And a rich history it is, from Tesla and Edison duking it out in one of the world’s first format wars – direct current vs. alternating current – to the introduction of Power over Ethernet (PoE), and the NEC introducing a new class of electricity, Class 4 Fault Managed Power.

“Class 4 power is going to have an impact on how power is delivered, distributed and utilized,” says Microchip’s Alan Jay Zwiren. “Since Class 4 does not have the 100-meter limitation of PoE, it can be distributed throughout an entire structure.”

Enjoy the November issue, and have fun at electronica!

Best Regards,

Jason Lomberg

North American Editor, PSD