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Würth Elektronik’s Alexander Gerfer on the Global Market for Electronic Components
By Kim Sauer, Scoop Communications
Elektronic eiSos discusses the global market trends and opportunities for the electronic and electromechanical component market with Scoop’s Kim Sauer. He reviews the requirements from key market segments and ex- plains how the future is being shaped by Industry 4.0, miniaturization and power management. Kim Sauer: Let’s talk about Würth Elektronic and the global environ- ment you’re working in. Can you give us a snapshot of the various markets that you’re involved in? Alexander Gerfer: We serve many markets, but are mainly focused on industrial applications — medical, transportation, and automotive — and a bit less on the consumer mar-
I
n this interview from APEC 2016, held in Long Beach, California, CTO Alexander Gerfer of Würth
kets. These markets are developing well and are presenting new and ex- citing challenges with the develop- ment and emergence of a whole host of new applications and concepts, like Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT). And, power manage- ment plays a key role there. K.S.: For the high-reliability mar- kets, reliability and quality demands are very high up on the list of what customers need. Do you have to deal with those differently than you would with, say, the consumer markets? A.G.: Even the consumer side is now asking for more reliable components, because they see that field failures in consumer applications would result in high costs afterward. So at Würth Elektronic, we design-in quality from the beginning in accordance with mainly AEC-Q200 for the passive
components. Even if we don’t shout about it, many of our designs adhere to those quality standards and go through rigorous checks. Of course there are differences too. For exam- ple, in automotive-driven applica- tions, the components are specially marked for this particular market. Quality is at the core of every compo- nent, but different applications have different needs and different envi- ronmental aspects that affect them, which we have to take into consider- ation during design to offer our cus- tomers the best component for their required application. K.S.: How are Industry 4.0 and sup- ply-chain transparency influencing your approach to “design for manu- facturability” and how is this shap- ing the way you work with your cus- tomers and the designers? A.G.: “Design for manufacturability” is exactly our approach from the be- ginning. In our market, design engi- neers require help with magnetics and inductors. This was confirmed here at the APEC show in a presen- tation given by Dr. Ray Ridley, who highlighted that there is a lack of knowledge and poor training for magnetics or inductors. That’s not an American phenomenon, it’s a global phenomenon. Neither high schools or universities cover this topic in great detail. We see it as our role from the beginning to help our customers un- derstand what is important for in- ductors — how to go about selection and how to get the best fit for the particular application. Customers are starting to get much better specs from other manufacturers of magnet- ics. This is the right trend, because that’s what we need. Remember, not everything is digital. Power is ana- log, even if there’s a digital control loop. It’s analog design, and we help the engineer build this knowledge. If ignored, the consequences could mean increased time to market due to failures in design, leading to fail- ures of the prototype, and so on. So, our approach is to support our cus- tomers’ design engineers from the outset where our design teams help them to find the right, best-fitting components for their application and avoid any bottlenecks or problems that could occur by the wrong compo- nent choice. K.S.: What about the future — what trends are you seeing? Where are the growth areas for you? A.G.: Internet of Things and data communications in general, whether it’s wireless or wired, those are im- portant trends. A recent study sug- gested a slowdown around the Indus-
try 4.0 and IoT hype, because expec- tations were too high. But, of course, predictive maintenance is a very im- portant topic for industrial applica- tions and industrial users. Manufac- turing process control and reducing downtime for production lines will increase productivity, achieve better output, and therefore a better return on investment in an industrial envi- ronment. So, I think it’s only taking a little longer time to implement than initially expected within certain ap- plications. At Würth Elektronic, as mentioned, our approach is to give the best support to the designers in order to help them achieve faster time to market. Another important trend is any kind of miniaturization —also in relation to power supply ap- plications. These are already being discussed carefully. Efficiency meas- ures and power density status need to be defined, for example, and we need to develop and provide the right components for these applications. We are working continuously on miniaturization, and finding even better and more suitable materials. Contact: Wurth Electronics
ICS, Inc., 7496 Webster Street, Day- ton, OH 45414 % 877-690-2207 fax: 937-415-7710 E-mail:
cs@we-ics.com Web:
www.we-online.com r
Find this and many other videos at Scoop’s YouTube channel, “The Scoop TV.”
June, 2016
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