Embedded Tech Trends 2014, the business and technology forum for critical and intelligent embedded systems, just wrapped up in Phoenix. This year 19 sponsor companies and 13 editors and industry analysts gathered for an intensive two days of technology presentations and meetings. Twenty-five presentations were delivered in a very fast paced format that kept everyone on their toes. Each morning session of presentations was followed by a hectic afternoon of one-on-one sponsor/media meetings.
The purpose of the event is to bring media and industry thought leaders together to exchange ideas and to network among peers. It is good old fashioned face-to-face networking that is not possible with even the best of online social media networks. Nothing beats spending a few days with such a collection of industry colleagues. I left the event filled with new ideas and industry connections.
The presentations were in TED Talk format, meaning they were supposed to be about 15 minutes in length, light on bulleted text, and were to be devoid of promotional material. About half of the presenters stuck to that format while others are still learning the style. Keeping the presentations short allowed much more content to be added to the agenda while keeping the energy level high and the event moving at a fast pace.
I kicked off the event with a bit of data on the state of the industry and highlights from the International CES that I attended in January in Las Vegas. Toby Colquhoun, an analyst with IHS Electronics & Media, then presented a high-level rundown on market numbers for VITA and PICMG technologies.
Attendees left the conference exhausted from the intensity of the sessions but excited to have exchanged so much information and renewed industry connections. All of the presentations are posted and can be viewed at the Embedded Tech Trends website [www.embeddedtechtrends.com].
The event in 2015 will be held January 19 and 20 at a location to be determined. Be sure to check out sponsorship opportunities and get this event on your marketing calendars.
The remaining presentations covered many industry related topics as indicated by the following titles:
- The rising importance of signal integrity in VPX Systems TE Connectivity – Matthew McAlonis
- New direction for Digital Signal Processing Kontron – Glenn Johnson
- FMCs: Are you measuring the right metrics? 4DSP – Mike Pochkowski
- Is ‘open’ delaying the future of cognitive computing? Mercury Systems – Ian Dunn
- The compliance challenge Elma Electronic – Michael Munroe
- Alternative embedded architectures without a central processor Alpha Data, Inc. – Adam Smith
- Extending the AdvancedTCA standard for higher performance footprint Artesyn Embedded Technologies – Rob Persons
- Video processing technologies and challenges for mil/aero applications CES – Creative Electronic Systems SA – Alan Simmonds
- SMARC for low power, low cost, high performance design ADLINK Technology – Matthias Huber
- Chassis vendor perspective on the standards market LCR Embedded Systems, Inc. – John Long
- Testing for PCIe SSD compatibility and performance Teledyne LeCroy – John Wiedemeier
- Getting rugged with COM Express MEN Mikro Elektronik GmbH – Michael Planner
- New EW architectures based on tight coupling of FPGA and CPU processing, OpenVPX Radar & EW platforms Interface Concept – Thierry Wastiaux
- FMCs in defense markets, extending to industrial TechwaY – Patrick Mechin
- VPX approaches to rugged, conduction-cooled software radio applications using Virtex-7 architectures Pentek – Rodger Hosking
- Considerations for bridging storage technologies Elma Electronic – Ken Grob
- Certification for avionic mission computers CES – Creative Electronic Systems SA – Wayne McGee
- Bringing server-class performance to mobile military applications Mercury Systems – Marc Couture
- Rugged MicroTCA poised to take on VPX for mil/aero applications VadaTech – Justin Moll
- PICMG update PICMG – Doug Sandy
- VITA update VITA – Jerry Gipper
- Eliminating the fall-out from Moore’s Law: A profitable alternative to end-of-life GDCA – Ethan Plotkin
- The Next Generation Space Interconnect Standard (NGSIS) – SpaceVPX (VITA 78) Air Force Research Laboratory – Patrick Collier