Analog Solutions for Sustainability Multi-Billion Dollar...

Gary Fowler of Analog Solutions writes about...

Active-Semi is one of the leaders in highly integrated semiconductor power management solutions. They have recently come out with a Management Solutions Power Applications Controller Platform (PAC) needed by many popular consumer products.

They are pioneering in Micro Application Solutions. This solutions allow conversions to energy efficient home appliances, industrial controls, LED lighting, computer power supplies, automotive electronics and renewable energy products.

LG Electronics raves about this new system..."PAC is a very unique system chip platform that allows us to implement various high energy efficiency products with reduced time to market."

This is a Multi-Billion Dollar market!  Researchers expect global microcontroller products to reach $26.7 billion by 2017.

This is mainly because of electronics demanded by the consumer, industrial and automotive companies depending on microcontrollers to achieve and manage efficient, built-in energy-saving features.

Read more about this innovative technology here.

Excerpt from article (See below for some high consumer demand products using this PAC platform):

• Home appliances such as washing machine, dishwashers and induction heat ovens and stoves
• Air conditioning systems
• Motor controllers
• Power tools
• LED lighting controllers
• Solar micro-inverters
• Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)
• General purpose high-voltage system controllers

Calling all Engineering Students and Professors Worldwide

Analog Devices is opening up an ADI University Program Design Contest. The goal is to enhance engineering students’ educational experience by helping them to quickly and easily build and test real-world, functional analog circuits.

I believe this is a great way to encourage creativity, ingenuity, and facilitate the development of better technology. 

• This contest is open to all university students.
• All required materials will be submitted in English.
• All submissions must be original and belong to you.
• By submitting your projects you agree to allow ADI to reuse them for training and educational purposes.

Analog Devices serves over 60,000 customers, representing virtually all types of electronic equipment. Analog Devices is headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts, with design and manufacturing facilities throughout the world. Analog Devices is included in the S&P 500 Index.

To learn more about this international contest that ends with a proposal in front of Industry Experts at  the Analog Devices General Technical Conference in April 2013 click here

Gary Fowler, Executive Technology Recruiter, Analog Solutions

Humans drive our technology focused world

Today I wanted to write about something positive that happened on location at one of our leaders in this technology analog world, Google (GOOG).

Her name is Yeni Lopez and she is a janitor at the big Google headquarters in Silicon Valley. She originally only spoke Spanish as a language. She wanted to learn English to help her work and her daughter.

Yeni went to school three times a week for English and a fellow Google co-worker helped on her journey: A software engineer, by the name of Ben Lindahl, met with Lopez in a conference room an hour a week for structured English lessons for a year and a half.

Now the young lady can speak wonderful English and is able to interact better and currently volunteers at her daughters school during the day, while she works all night as a janitor at Google.

I enjoy this true story of other people helping one another in just the simple "human" areas of life that truly makes a positive impact. Even while surrounded by the most sophisticated technology, we can never forget the human element involved in all of life.

Read more here 

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter

Sphero the robot ball by Orbotix

It is interesting all the different type of things our analog semiconductor world can create.

Orbotix is a robot gaming system company. Launched by an entrepreneur who was involved with building 'homemade' robots since he was a child. This electrical engineer eventually found 5 million dollars to allow the company to go into full force production.

This robot is simply just a ball. Controlled by your smart phone.

You can even change the color from the application and customize your ball. The "Sphero" Balls sell for $129 a piece. I am sure it took a lot of Executive Technology Employees to produce this product!



Gary Fowler, Executive Technology Recruiter, Analog Solutions

Saving money is good!

Smart Gas Metering technology does just that...(Photo is an old analog gas meter on an ex-gas reservoir)

OMRON and STMicroelectronis (a global semiconductor leader) are working together for a smart electronic meter that will provide a more accurate and reliable measurements for most major gas providers. To unveil in November of 2012.

These meters will be much smaller, less expensive, and more efficient than the conventional equipment out there. Resulting in a cost savings for the utility companies and end users too!

These sensors are state of the art Micro-Elector-Mechanical Systems with a thermal flow transducer and high-performance analog front-end IC.

The best part of this new technology…measurements of gas quantities will be more accurate and allow for a savings of energy. As the old traditional gas measures do not automatically account for temperature, pressure variations, and multiple gas composition measurements. 

This new technology does compensate for this, thus saving energy by having laser focused measurements with no waste…that equals to huge gas savings when added up across the board.

Read more here!

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter