Contents Front End Harwin celebrates official opening of new


manufacturing facility in UK TRIAC-dimmable LYTSwitch-7 LED driver ICs from


Power Integrations cut BOM count by 40 per cent Aspen brings Exodus to the UK and launches with


three new SSPAs Industrial strength regulators


Heads down, keep moving forward - it’s just more


of the same Interview


CEO celebrates 30 years with company 4-12


Microlease receives third consecutive Frost & Sullivan 4 Company of the Year Award


5 6 8


10 12


14-15 14-15


Speaking to Ulf Timmerman, CEO of reichelt, CIE editor Amy Wallington finds out about the last 30 years with the company and what new things are happening now as the company branches out internationally


EDA 16


Eliminating the power integrity analysis bottleneck 16 from PCB design


Designing and building PCB boards comes with many difficulties. John Carney, staff application engineer, Cadence, talks about how to solve these challenges


Enclosures How wearable electronics could save your life…


18-19 18


…but only if the plastic enclosure housing them is tough enough to survive the danger threatening you. Robert Cox, marketing director, OKW Enclosures, explains why getting the case right is crucial to success in the wearables market


Biometric physical access control in data centres: 19


ensuring regulatory compliance Physically securing private information in data centres has proven challenging, as the necessary technology has lagged far behind network security technology.


Electrical safety assured with Rittal’s TS 8 baying system 20 Safety and security are two high priorities for installers and users of electrical switchgear. To prevent personal injury or property damage as a result of issues such as fault currents (short circuits), a number of industry standards and regulations have to be followed.


Configuring standard enclosures


When buying a standard enclosure, ask the manufacturer to configure it for your project. Russell Irvine, Hammond Electronics, talks about what kinds of modifications can take place and how they are done


Wireless Technology 22-23


Commit to LoRa technology for long-range IoT systems 22 The Internet of Things will touch all aspects of daily life, covering an unimaginable range of applications from connected wearable devices designed to communicate over distances of just a few centimetres, to a wide variety of asset management and sensor-monitoring applications that must communicate with one or more gateways over distances of up to several kilometres.


Editor: Amy Wallington AWallington@cieonline.co.uk T) 03301232056


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Design: Eric Ridden


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T) 0844 381 4235 21 Track and trace for dogs and cats 23


Traceability enables customers to track the route their components take through the supply chain. And many pet owners would be happy if their four- legged friends could be just as easily tracked, because it’s not uncommon for runaway pets to be lost. Many of them are found again, but many remain lost forever. To prevent this, Swiss company HergTech AG has developed the petpointer. Daniel Barth, senior marketing manager, wireless at Rutronik talks about how they assisted with the development of the petpointer


Wearable Technology One step at a time


24-27 24


Wearable devices are becoming a useful tool to monitor people’s progress during exercise. Zhang Feng from Microchip Technology explains how to build a low-energy digital pedometer


Making your wearable design secure both now and 26 in the future


Wearable devices are becoming more and more popular in everyday life. Kim Kaisti, product management director, u-blox, Pascal Herczog, vice president of cellular technology, u-blox and Charles Sturman, senior principal product strategy, u-blox talks about how to make them secure


Micro Nano MEMS Register now for Micro Nano MEMS 2016


Now in its eighth year and firmly established as the UK's leading event for small and ultra-precision technology, the Micro Nano MEMS exhibition returns to the NEC, Birmingham on 28th & 29th September 2016


Embedded Technology Flat design meets high performance 29-30 29


Numerous commercial motherboards are available for 6th generation Intel Core processors (codename Skylake). These are, however, unsuitable for deployment in harsh IoT and industrial environments. Jürgen Jungbauer, product manager single board computer, congatec AG, talks about industrial- grade design motherboards, such as congatec’s Thin Mini-ITX, offering the added-value required for this type of application


Xilinx extends ecosystem to reshape the future of 30 embedded vision IoT system design


Broad IP, software, hardware and design services offerings enable smarter, connected, highly differentiated systems based on All Programmable devices. Aaron Behman, director, video & vision, corporate strategy & marketing, Xilinx, and Dan Isaacs, director, industrial IoT, corporate strategy & marketing Xilinx tells us more


Spotlight On A spotlight on Blue Wireless


32-33 32


The spotlight for July and August is on Blu Wireless as CIE editor, Amy Wallington, speaks to CMO, Mark Barrett about his career in the electronics industry and how it started through his love of music and having to build a bass guitar amplifier


BBC micro:bit BBC micro:bit - the learning tool of the future


With the digital age largely upon us, it is time to embrace it and make sure our children, the future generation, understand it enough to be able to pursue their chosen careers. CIE editor, Amy Wallington, spoke to Richard Curtin, strategic alliance director, Premier Farnell, to find out about the BBC’s ‘Make it Digital’ initiative and the introduction of the BBC micro:bit


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