Avnet hosts another successful technical seminar

27 March 2019 Editor's Choice News

Avnet South Africa held its semi-annual Avnet Insights technology seminar on 5 and 6 March at Blandford Manor in Northriding, Johannesburg.

The event gave delegates the opportunity to learn about some of the latest technologies available from Avnet and its suppliers, and to network with representatives of the company and with each other.

Divided into five sessions each day and split across four lecture rooms, a strong focus for this year’s event was the Internet of Things (IoT), including not only the devices but also the broader ecosystem enabling the deployment of IoT projects.

This included presentations such as iSert on local and international certification requirements, Digi International with its XBee solution, a demonstration of Nordic Semiconductor’s Bluetooth Low Energy stack implementation, Microsoft’s Azure and IoT central cloud solution, a Sigfox overview from Sqwidnet and Sigfox implementation from STMicroelectronics, NB-IoT covered by Vodacom and Telit, and future-proofing a GSM design by Quectel.

Also presenting were Infineon Technologies on MOSFETs, Panasonic on MLCC replacement, Avnet Abacus on battery trends and technologies, Maxim Integrated Products on security and authentication, as well as several others.

According to Brandon Kuhn, Avnet South Africa’s technical director and Cape Town branch manager, the seminar was a successful way of bringing the company’s suppliers and customers together. “I would like to thank all the speakers, both local and from abroad, for giving their time to educate our customers on the latest products and technologies in their respective stables. To our customers, I would like to say thank you for making the event a success and we look forward to hosting you all again in two years’ time,” he said.

Further reading:

What is Wi-Fi HaLow and why choose it for IoT?
iCorp Technologies Editor's Choice Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT
Wi-Fi HaLow introduces a low power connectivity option that, in contrast to other Wi-Fi options, offers greater range of approximately 1 km, which opens up a raft of IoT use cases.

Read more...

---

Simple battery charger ICs for any chemistry
Altron Arrow Editor's Choice Power Electronics / Power Management
The LTC4162 is a highly integrated, high voltage multi-chemistry synchronous monolithic step-down battery charger and PowerPath manager with onboard telemetry functions and optional maximum power point tracking.

Read more...

---

From the editor's desk: Is the current AI really what we want?
Technews Publishing Editor's Choice
The companies that develop LLMs need to change direction and concentrate on freeing up our time, not so that we can have more time to do the tasks we don’t want to do in the first place, but rather to allow us more time to do what we love.

Read more...

---

When it comes to long-term reliability of RF amplifier ICs, focus first on die junction temperature
Altron Arrow Editor's Choice Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT
When considering the long-term reliability of integrated circuits, a common misconception is that high package or die thermal resistance is problematic. However, high or low thermal resistance, by itself, tells an incomplete story.

Read more...

---

ICs vs modules: Understanding the technical trade-offs for IoT applications
NuVision Electronics Editor's Choice DSP, Micros & Memory
As the IoT continues to transform industries, design decisions around wireless connectivity components become increasingly complex with engineers often facing the dilemma of choosing between ICs and wireless modules for their IoT applications.

Read more...

---

Why bis means business for LTE Cat 1 IoT connections
NuVision Electronics Editor's Choice Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT
Tomaž Petaros, product manager IoT EMEA at Quectel Wireless Solutions explains why the market for Cat 1bis IoT connections is getting busy.

Read more...

---

Interview with Brian Aziz, vice president of global sales, Iridium
Editor's Choice
ridium is the leading satellite IoT player. Their network consists of 66 active low Earth orbit satellites covering every inch of the globe and are used for IoT and emergency services worldwide.

Read more...

---

Accelerating AI adoption in MCU manufacturing
Editor's Choice AI & ML
To gain the value of ML functionality, designers of MCU-based devices have to adopt a new development method and accept a new type of probabilistic rather than deterministic output.

Read more...

---

Altron Arrow: Empowering innovation with STMicroelectronics AI processors
Altron Arrow Editor's Choice AI & ML
ST’s AI processors are not only smarter and faster, but also incredibly efficient, enabling a new wave of intelligent solutions across multiple industries.

Read more...

---

The superpower driving the future of low carbon electricity
Editor's Choice
Modularity is a superpower. The advantage lies in smaller units that can be built, tested, refined, adapted, improved repetitively, allowing many experimentation and learning iterations.

Read more...

---