Horizon House and ACT International held the first annual Electronic Design Innovation Conference (EDI CON) and exhibition March 12-14 in Beijing, China, where high-frequency electronic design engineers from around the globe converged for two and a half days of intensive technical learning and networking opportunities. Featuring more than 130 in-depth technical papers, workshops and panel discussions designed to address the challenges of RF, microwave, high-speed digital and EMI/EMC at all levels of electronic design, as well as visionary keynotes from leading Chinese and international research agencies and private communication OEMs such as ZTE and China Mobile, the event drew in excess of 2,000 attendees including over 1,100 conference delegates, over 800 visitors and exhibitors and more than 30 members of the press.

In the sold-out exhibition, more than 50 international and Chinese companies highlighted products supporting high-frequency component designers and system integrators featuring solutions that included test and measurement equipment, design software, integrated device manufacturers, semiconductor components and foundries, passive surface mount components, printed-circuit board materials, cables/connectors and more.

"EDI CON 2013 was a great success, far exceeding our goals for this inaugural year" said David Vye, conference director and editor-in-chief of Microwave Journal. "With this first time event, we asked sponsors, exhibitors and delegates to believe in our vision for an industry-driven event, whereby commercial companies played a leading role in defining the technical sessions and workshop content.  To our great satisfaction, the quality of the material was exceptional and the audience engagement with the speakers was exceedingly robust. The feedback on our technical program format is very encouraging as we are in the process of planning next year’s event in the spring of 2014.”

“As the platinum sponsor for EDI CON 2013, Agilent is pleased to help nurture design innovation in China through our support of this new industry-driven technical conference and exhibition”, said Guy Séné, president electronic measurement group, Agilent Technologies. “The technical program attracted the engineering professionals ideally suited to our RF, microwave and high-speed digital design solutions.”

Designed to provide attendees with unique opportunities to learn about cutting-edge technical developments and solutions from leading industry experts, the EDI CON 2013 exhibition featured numerous live product demonstrations and several new product announcements to the China market. A few standouts include:

  • Agilent featured their new real-time spectrum analyzer (RTSA) capability, an upgrade option for new and existing PXAs, making the PXA the first traditional signal analyzer to offer the opportunity to add real-time analysis after the purchase. This real-time capability is available for about one-tenth the cost of purchasing a new real-time analyzer.
  • Rohde & Schwarz featured its new R&S BBA150 compact, lightweight amplifiers for EMC testing covering the 0.8 to 3 GHz frequency band with available output powers ranging from 30 to 200 W.
  • Anritsu showcased two new members of its VNA Master handheld vector network analyzer series that bring the inherent advantages of VNA Master to 15 GHz frequency applications.
  • Tektronix unveiled its next generation of arbitrary waveform generators, which offers up to 50 GS/s sample rate performance, 16 GS of waveform memory, and 10 bit vertical resolution.

Microwave Journal and Microwave Journal China will be writing a complete show wrap-up online. Additional information about the EDI CON 2013 conference and exhibition is available at http://www.ediconchina.com/ and on Facebook.