The World's Leading Trade Fair and Conference for Electronics

­It’s that time of year! Well...not the one with reindeer and a jolly fat man, but arguably the most important time of year for our industry.

First, though, I hope everyone had a spookily satisfying All Hallow’s Eve and you didn’t go up too many sizes after sampling your kids’ candy haul (I may have just self-incriminated myself).

And if you happen to celebrate the Day of the Dead, sugar skulls and all, I hope you had a Feliz día de los Muertos. For my part, I’ve adopted the holiday, in secular fashion, as a way of processing a personal loss, and it’s a lovely occasion.

Meanwhile, 2022 is an electronica year, so 100,000+ engineers, marketing professionals, publishers, analysts, and more — including my European colleague, Ally Winning — will be making the pilgrimage to Munich.

Electronica markets itself as the “World’s leading trade fair and conference for electronics,” and I’d say that wholly accurate. While other trade shows, like the Consumer Electronics Show and the defunct CeBIT, might be larger and flashier, there’s no single event more important and relevant to our industry than electronica.

Held at the Messe München trade-fair center every other year since its inception in 1964 – meaning it predates the more famous CES by three years – electronica is the place to be for design engineers, techies, journalists, and everyone associated with this sector.

I’ve never had the pleasure, but it’s definitely on my bucket list.

The 2022 electronica will also serve as a mini victory over COVID, since it’s the first live version since 2018 (2020’s event, like everything else on this planet, was virtual). Hopefully, by the time you read this, you’re either planning for a highly productive electronica, or a successful gala is in the books.

And before, during, and after the shindig in Munich, hopefully you’ll enjoy our November issue on Motor Drives, Robotics, and Controls.

One of the two articles I’d like to highlight focuses on brushless DC motors and their design considerations and challenges.

Jose Quinones, with Qorvo, gives a terrific primer on these synchronous motors that use a DC power supply, noting that BLDCs offer better performance, improved efficiency and long life, though as he also points out, a multiphase AC supply must be provided from a VFD.

“There are many variables in the implementation of BLDC motor control, including maximum and intermittent torque required, power, speed range, operating voltage, feedback sensor type, their levels and more,” he says.

The other piece I’d like to discuss deals with the idea of a “control deadtime,” deadtime being “the delay needed between the turn OFF and turn ON of two devices when an overlap in ON times would result in cross conduction currents,” says EPC’s Andrea Gorgerino.

Andrea goes over this highly important consideration and how to best reduce deadtime and leverage it.

Have fun in Munich!

Best Regards,

Jason Lomberg

North American Editor, PSD