Track Letter From Allan Yogasingam

Hello dudes and dudettes,

This is Allan Yogasingam – editor of EE Times Products and the Green SupplyLine, personally inviting you to come on down to this year's Embedded Systems Conference in the heart of Silicon Valley in San Jose. This year, I've undertaken the responsibility of chairing one of the most interesting, dynamic, and socially responsible topics in the history of the conference, a module dedicated to the concepts of clean technology and Green Engineering. What is ‘Green Engineering’? What was once a term reserved for a niche market of engineering for sustainability has exploded to one of the most rapidly growing fields of technology. Green engineering now covers everything from alternative energy design, like battery technology or wind power, to power efficiency and LED lighting!

Our module takes a look at three interesting and diverse topics in the field of Green Engineering and each of these topics are led by some of the best experts in the industry today.

Firstly, we have Zigbee Smart Energy Profiles - a presentation discussing the use of ZigBee and ZigBee stacks to develop a energy management system that links the devices specified in the Smart Energy bridges them to a network for all other devices in the home. This presentation is given by Tim Gillman and Drew Gislason of San Juan Software and is sure to help you understand how important ZigBee can be to energy management.

Next, Richard Newell of Actel presents: Agile Sensor Design for the Smart Grid; a fascinating look at a real-world design that utilizes a single IC comprising a uC, FPGA, and Analog Front End that is programmed to measure and report electrical power attributes. This, in turn, can be used to help power companies conserve energy & quality and bring us one step closer to achieving the Smart Grid as the pivotal element in any smart grid architecture is the intelligent sensor.

Lastly, be sure to attend Power Management Techniques and Estimation Method for Embedded Processors - a presentation by Kazunobu Shin of Texas Instruments. Mr. Shin will be teaching advanced power management techniques using lower power, high performance processors, and show you how to do so without sacrificing performance. Review the concepts behind various power-saving techniques and get an introduction to the power estimation method – used to estimate the processor power for different application scenarios.

This module stands to be one of the most timely subjects for ESC Boston, as power efficiency is becoming synonamous with clean technology, a fast-growing industry spurred by the engineering community globally and governments across the world. Please attend these sessions and you'll have walk out with a better understanding of all the opportunities available to us to engineer devices that can make the world a better place.

I hope to see you in attendance,
Rock on my homies,
Allan Yogasingam