Three of the DCA team were at the Electronica show in Munich in November 2018. This is a major trade fair for the electronics industry in Europe.
The size of the show makes it invaluable to catch up with the latest developments in the industry, but also impossible to catch everything. However, two big trends this year were new components for electric vehicles and approaches for Industry 4.0, automating production facilities. Connectivity was a key feature with several companies exhibiting modules for the emerging NB-IoT standard, and a number of demonstrations of Bluetooth meshing. It was also interesting to see manufacturers promoting solutions in sensors and front-end sensor processing for medical applications.
We spoke to a number of suppliers with innovative components that will help us to integrate electronics in smaller packages at decreasing costs, which is becoming ever more challenging in our present projects. The current component shortages being experienced by the industry were frequently referenced, with some signs of hope as manufacturers speak of additional capacity becoming available in 2019.
