Electronica 2024 Recap

December 09, 2024

Blog

I spent three days at electronica in Munich last month and saw some amazing technologies and products, in addition to meeting some old friends, and (hopefully) making some new ones. Rumor has it that there were about 80,000 attendees and almost 3,500 exhibitors, spread out over 18 halls. Oh, and it was cold, very cold.

Obviously, I couldn’t see everything that there was to see, so I’ll mention a few vendors, products, and technologies, that stuck out to me.

onsemi again talked about power being the next frontier, and how valuable a resource power is. That’s easier to understand when you learn that it takes ten times the amount of power to do an AI-based search versus a traditional search. onsemi is promoting “intelligent power,” particularly in the automotive and industrial spaces. To that end, the company introduced its Treo mixed-signal platform that’s built with a modular architecture, and manufactured on an advanced 65-nm node. The scalable solution is aimed at a host of applications, including high-performance and low-power sensing, high-efficiency power management, and purpose-built communications devices. It includes elements for communications, power management, sensing, and compute.

Indie Semiconductor, a developer of cost-effective semiconductors in the automotive space, is looking specifically at the in-cabin user experience, as well as accelerating electrification while attempting to design the “uncrashable” vehicle (hear more about this on a recent podcast, The In-Cabin User Experience). Currently, the company is working on what it calls “best-in-class” LIDAR technology, an area that will boom in automobiles in the near future. The technology is quite robust, and the costs are starting to come down.

Macronix recently introduced its 3D NOR flash technology, which excels at high-speed random access, suiting it for embedded applications like bootloaders and code storage. The 3D stacking increases the capacity, one of the previous limitations of the technology, without sacrificing performance.

The 3D architecture also improves endurance, supporting 100,000 program/erase cycles, and ensures compliance with automotive standards like AECQ-100 and ISO 26262 ASIL-B. Its low power consumption, operating at 1.8 or 3 suits it for portable devices and IoT applications.

The “data center” is becoming an important part of our lexicon, thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence, and the huge amount of data that needs to be processed. Those giant compute engines obviously require power, and as we already stated, power is a valuable resource. The combat that issue, Navitas has developed a module that’s designed with both GaN and SiC technologies.

Harwin Connectors has developed an on-line tool that helps developers determine their optimal board-to-board and high-reliability interconnect technologies, particularly for demanding applications like the data center. The tool can also help streamline design and prototyping, and simplify selection and purchasing, while ultimately reducing time to market.

Keeping with that data center/HPC theme, Flex Power Modules announced a pair of power products that meet the demands created by AI, machine learning, and cloud applications. Both the BMR352, a high-power DC/DC converter, and the BMR316, a next-generation intermediate bus converter (IBC), are designed to deliver greater power density in compact form factors.

The BMR352 high-efficiency power module supports the latest GPUs as it delivers up to 3 kW peak power within a quarter-brick standard form factor. The BMR316  IBC with advanced cooling options efficiently converts 48 V to 12 V in space-limited applications. Both modules work with Flex Power Designer, a tool that allows users to configure, simulate, and monitor performance in real-time.

NXP had an interesting announcement—the industry’s first wireless battery management system (BMS) solution using Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology, aimed at electric vehicles (EVs). Such a system helps overcome the challenges associated with a wired system, namely the cost, weight, and complexity of a wiring harness. The BMS, which is part of NXP’s FlexCom chipset, can send battery cell information such as voltage and temperature measurements.