EDI CON China 2019 returned to Beijing and the Chinese National Convention Center (CNCC) April 1-3 with an exhibition of 100 industry-leading companies as well as a technical conference that included 2 and a half days of technical presentations, workshops, panels and featured keynote talks.

The featured keynote talks were given by representatives from the event Host Sponsor Keysight Technologies and Diamond Sponsor Rohde & Schwarz. The invited featured keynote speaker was Steven Sandler, founder of Picotest.  In his talk, Sandler, a renowned power expert, addressed “Power Related Considerations in RF, Microwave and High Speed Circuits.”

Sandler’s technical presentation looked at the many ways the power supply impacts RF, microwave and high speed digital systems, and he also covered some techniques for simulating, measuring and trouble-shooting these complex issues.  By way of example, he showed   how various power sources can significantly affect phase noise of an oscillator.

He opened and closed the presentation by discussing what a clear definition of power integrity is, and concluded with his own definition: power integrity is a complete ecosystem dedicated to providing the appropriate power to all load devices, without degrading overall system performance. He pointed out that just minimizing impedance between power and ground does not necessarily work.

Following Sandler’s discussion, Roger Nichols of Keysight reviewed the status of 5G rollouts and challenges ahead while Alexander Pabst of R&S reviewed 5G OTA testing methods and solutions. This offered attendees a nice mix of the status of the 5G industry combined with the solutions that have been developed to address the challenges facing the industry.

Directly following these keynotes, the exhibition floor opened, showcasing innovations from industry leading companies including Keysight, Rohde & Schwarz, Mini-Circuits/Mitron, UNI Compound, WIN Semiconductors, Sichuan YiFeng Electronic Science & Technology, Xiamen Sanan IC, Ceyear, ADI, Rogers, MACOM, NI/AWR, ANSYS and many others. About 100 exhibitors were present. Host sponsor Keysight expanded its footprint this year with an extended partners section all connected to the Keysight exhibition area. This year’s exhibition also hosted the 2^nd Annual EDI CON Product Innovation Awards, which honor products introduced in the last year that have had the greatest impact on the industry and provide the tools necessary to bring on the next-generation of electronic design innovations. The winners included:

• Components, Cables, & Connectors category winner:  TMY Technology Inc., Phase-locked oscillator
• Software/EDA category winner:  National Instruments/AWR, Network Synthesis Wizard
• Semiconductors category winner:  Analog Devices, ADRV9009 RF Transceiver
• Test & Measurement category winner:  Hongke Technology Co., LTD, Handheld Microwave Spectrum Analyzer for 70-87 GHz
• Materials, PCBs, & Packaging Winner:  WIN Semiconductors, MW plastic QFN Package Series.

This year’s event included technical sessions and workshops in these topic areas:

All three days included technical presentations based on abstracts that were peer reviewed by the EDI CON China 2019 Technical Advisory Committee. The conference also included workshops presented by EDI CON China sponsors, covering application and product specific topics and offering hands-on advice for how to use systems, devices as well as test & measurement and simulation and modeling equipment in the latest electronic designs. Show-floor applications talks were open to all attendees and offered insight into best design practices in the Frequency Matters Theater. These proved to be popular in their first year as attendees could just drop in on these talks and rest their feet for a while and listen.

EDI CON China 2019 hosted two panel sessions made up of industry experts from around the world. The “5G Over-The-Air (OTA) Test” panel examined how massive MIMO, dynamic beamforming and the absence of RF test ports on devices and systems are making OTA testing critical to 5G deployment. The panel of industry experts reviewed the options for OTA testing such as near-field measurement, indirect far field measurement, and reverberation chamber techniques that would be practical for production measurement of 5G devices and systems.

In the “State of GaN Technology” panel, semiconductor foundry and device manufacturer experts reviewed and debated the state of GaN manufacturing covering topics such as reliability, advanced heat dissipation techniques, new pack- aging innovations, Si vs. SiC substrates, mmWave GaN devices, using GaN for other device types such as switches/LNAs/mixers, and the state of GaN semiconductor production in China.

Overall, the event attendance was up 6% over last year so EDI CON China continues to grow. Next year the event moves to May 12-14 and back to its normal fourth floor location at the CNCC. EDI CON China plans to expand the event even more next year with more sessions and companies featuring signal and power integrity topics, while continuing to provide in-depth discussions of RF/microwave and EMC/EMI topics.