Chicago, IL
Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
June 7-9, 2010
Attendees: 1,600
Exhibitors: 28
Press/Analysts: 30
Calysto Overview
Held in key strategic technology development locations worldwide, such as London, Boston, Chicago, San Jose and Bangalore, India, the Embedded Systems Conferences (ESC) are informational events for the global electronics industry. Produced by the EE Times Group, a division of United Business Media, the events include product demonstrations, speeches and hundreds of technical training classes and accreditation opportunities, making them a good venue for the design engineering community to learn and collaborate.
This year, ESC returned to Chicago for the first time since 2002. This year’s event brought together more than 1,600 system architects, design engineers, suppliers, analysts and media.
The conference caught people’s attention early with Ronald Mallett, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Connecticut, who spoke to a captivated audience about his personal mission to make time travel a reality during the keynote presentation. Then Wade Patterson, CEO and board chairman of Synapse Wireless, spoke about machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless communications and its application to energy, healthcare, vehicle tracking, building automation, and asset management.
This year’s conference featured 10 industry tracks, including the Build Your Own Embedded Systems course that featured the BeagleBoard, a community-driven single-board computer. All conference attendees got a free BeagleBoard to develop and keep in two hands-on training workshops. Medical, Open Source Software and Real-time System Development represented other key tracks at the conference.
One of the most popular tracks looked at robotics and motor controls. Another track that drew a lot of attention was medical electronics. Venture capitalists invested almost $4 billion in medical devices last year. Greg Davis, director of engineering at Green Hills Software, discussed the trials and tribulations of programming embedded designs using C or C .
Other highlights included the ESC Show Floor theater, with live panels and product teardowns, which were popular segments at the show. The products featured were the Cue Radio Model r1 with iPod docking station, Sony digital reader and the FitBit pocket-sized, clip-shaped device that tracks calories burned, the number of steps taken, and distance traveled.
Reports about traffic on the show floor varied. Some thought it was a bit slow at times, while others were pleased with the quantity and quality of leads they picked up from the show. One exhibitor commented that the attendees at this conference are very enthusiastic and knowledgeable.
Toshiba enticed visitors to its booth by holding a drawing for an Apple iPad, and Microchip was giving away Energizer batteries, retractable in-ear headphones and mini screwdrivers at its booth.
Another feature of the event this year was the EE Times Twitter scavenger hunt. Organizers sent followers on a hunt for prizes—such as development kits, engineering tools and two Apple iPads—on the expo floor. Those who signed up followed the tweets @esc_blast on their mobile phones during the event.
There were several announcements at the show. Microchip introduced an embedded Wi-Fi transceiver module and an ultra-low-power transceiver module for 868, 915 and 950 MHz networks, and Actel showcased the SmartFusion intelligent mixed signal FPGAs and demonstrated the SmartFusion Evaluation Kit.
The Sensors Expo & Conference was co-located with ESC, and attendees were able to access both conferences’ keynotes and expo floors. According to organizers, it is the only industry event in North America exclusively focused on sensors and sensor integrated systems, providing attendees the opportunity to see the latest sensing solutions, evaluate emerging standards, find and compare suppliers and solve new design challenges.
“The first day of the Sensors and ESC conference is meant to be a symposium…think college lecture, but for eight hours,” said one blogger.” It was an interesting first view of not only the presenters, but also the audience—the ones who cared enough to pay and attend for all three days (going to see only the “expo” for the next two days is free). These same lucky people will get to attend breakout sessions for the remaining days.”
One attendee said that one of the drawbacks to the first day was the range of experience of attendees, which affected the content of the sessions. “At an IEEE conference, most people are assumed to be at a certain educational level, and those who really don’t understand feel the peer pressure to fake comprehension,” he said. “But here they are catering to a more beginner level, and there are many new topics, so it seems as though each topic only gets a scraping at the surface.”
One first-time ESC attendee said that he found value in the conference. He said by having conversations with smart people and learning about new products developed by other smart people, he collected a lot of useful information.
This year’s ESC Chicago, while smaller than its Silicon Valley counterpart, succeeded in offering valuable educational content and an exhibit floor that provided good synergy with the educational conference. This show offers many potential speaking opportunities and draws some tech journalists and bloggers to cover vendor announcements and product demonstrations.
ESC Chicago 2011 will take place June 6-8. The event will again be co-locating with Sensors at the Donald E Stevens Convention Center.
Articles of Interest
ESC Chicago Keynote Makes Case for Time Travel
RF DesignLine
By Karen Field
June 8, 2010
ESC Chicago: Microchip Debuts Embedded Wi-Fi and Sub-GHz Transceivers
RF Designline
By Patrick Mannion
June 8, 2010
ESC Chicago and Sensors Conference, Day 1
Chrisgammel.com
June 8, 2010
Sensors Expo: Powercast Demos Prelude to Mobile Network RF Energy Harvester
Embedded.com
By Patrick Mannion
June 9, 2010
ESC Chicago and Sensors Conference and Expo, Day 2
Chrisgammel.com
June 9, 2010
ESC Chicago: Machines that Tweet... and Some That Shouldn't
EE Times
By Patrick Mannion
June 10, 2010
Final Thoughts On The Embedded Community
Chrisgammel.com
June 10, 2010
ESC Chicago Panel: Embedded Android Good, But Not for Everyone
Embedded.com
By Patrick Mannion
June 14, 2010
Geist Technology: Web Enabled Remote Monitoring Solutions (video)
Engineeringtv.com/Electronic Design
By Bill Wong
June 16, 2010
WaveRoute M2M Network Hotspots and Web-Based Applications (video)
Engineeringtv.com/Electronic Design
By Bill Wong
June 16, 2010
SNAP-to-Internet Appliance Simplifies Embedded Connectivity (video)
Engineeringtv.com/Electronic Design
By Bill Wong
June 19, 2010
Digital Temperature Sensor Has Dual Alarms
Electronic Design
By Staff
June 19, 2010
Analog Devices Motion Sensor Products (video)
Engineeringtv.com
By Bill Wong
June 20, 2010
Tags: ESC, ESC Chicago
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