News

What’s New in Electronics Live, the dedicated electronics and manufacturing event, has been successfully acquired by Datateam Business Media and will now join the company’s portfolio of existing events and supporting publications including the Electronics, Electronics World and Components in Electronics titles.

With extensive experience in industry events covering a range of industries and sectors, Datateam is ideally positioned to support and implement the next growth phase of the WNIE Live event in the UK.

The show will now sit alongside Sensors & Instrumentation Live and both events will run in hall 1 at the NEC, Birmingham on the 29-30 September 2020.

The development of this acquisition will be led by event director Louise Pudney and her team, who are excited about the upcoming combination and the prospects of delivering many more years of vital events for the market.

Claire Saunders of New Events Ltd, who has been running the UK event for over 20 years, comments: “Datateam are investing heavily into the UK electronics, manufacturing and industrial sectors and will be adding WNIE Live to their existing event portfolio alongside other acquisitions.  They also have magazines which will support these events and we are confident the new team will deliver great customer service, and a quality event with relevant visitors.”

For information on exhibiting at What’s New in Electronics Live or Sensors & Instrumentation Live please contact Louise Pudney: lpudney@datateam.co.uk | 01622 699104

AMETEK Land, one of the UK’s leading temperature measurement and combustion monitoring specialists, is celebrating securing two certifications to ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Systems and ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems standards.

AMETEK Land started working toward the new certifications 12 months ago, as both complement the company’s current ISO 9001:2015 Quality Manager Systems standard and would put it in a stronger position when tendering for international contracts.

Alan Tarry, Division Vice President – Operations for AMETEK Land, said: “We’re delighted to have secured these two new certifications, which demonstrate the hard work and dedication of our teams in our UK business. Achieving these standards gives a clear indication that we are committed to both operating sustainably through the use of resources and recycling, as well as with the strongest focus on health and safety.”

Alan adds: “It is very positive to see strong participation across all functions with regards to both safety and environmental management and the increased awareness levels and engagement of our employees.”

AMETEK Land worked alongside health, safety, environmental and quality consultancy HSEQSmart, which provided invaluable support throughout the accreditation process, to ensure the company was ready for the first and second stage audits that took place in August and December 2019.

AMETEK Land achieved the certifications within just a 12-month period, which is testament to the skills of the project team and its employees based in its headquarters in Dronfield. The certification confirms that AMETEK Land — its leadership team and its employees — are committed to the overall safety of both in-house and external processes, products and instrumentation. The company is committed to the well-being and training of its employees and customers, whilst striving to manage the overall environmental impact of the business.

AMETEK Land’s Environment, Health and Safety Manager, Paul Coates, explains: “Environment, health, and safety issues are everyone’s concern within the business, and this is now made evident through these certifications.”

As part of achieving the standards, AMETEK Land set up a Health & Safety Environmental Continuous Improvement Group within its business, consisting of 12 individuals across all departments. Any issues or concerns are shared with the group, which uses best practices to reach an effective solution that is disseminated throughout the business.

As a business, AMETEK Land is committed to helping its customers meet their environmental commitments. One of its latest innovations, the NIR-B Glass borescope, was designed to accurately measure temperatures inside a glass melt furnace. However, this innovation not only leads to the optimisation of glass furnaces, but also to the reduction of NOx emissions in glass production facilities.

In addition, AMETEK Land developed the FGA, a multi-gas analyser that provides an accurate, reliable measurement of carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, and oxygen in flue gases. The FGA also calculates values for combustion efficiency, NOx, and carbon dioxide. This allows for better process control, lowers fuel costs and helps keeps emissions within compliance levels.

ISO 14001:2015 is a certified management system for organisations that want to enhance their environmental performance. As part of its environmental commitments, AMETEK Land has introduced targets for the next 12 months of 5% reduction of electricity and gas usage and targets for reduction of general waste, particularly plastic, with the company recently converting to recyclable cardboard across its packaging.

ISO 45001:2018 is a certified management system for organisations that want to improve occupational health and safety, eliminate hazards and minimize risks. The key components of the ISO 45001 management system that AMETEK Land put into place include business and operational policies, the context of the organisation, leadership commitment, operational monitoring, and improvement, plus overall performance evaluation.

AMETEK Land invested in HSE training for all employees — from directors, through operations, administrative staff and external service engineers — involving around 105 employees in total.

The UK’s cyber security industry is now worth an estimated £8.3 billion, with total revenues in the sector up 46 per cent from £5.7 billion in 2017.

The sector has seen significant growth in annual revenue and employment, as well as considerable investment in early-stage companies. The findings from the report show:

• The number of active cyber security firms in the UK has increased 44 per cent – up from 846 in 2017 to over 1,200 at year-end 2019. This growth is the equivalent to a new cyber security business being set up in the UK every week
• There are now approximately 43,000 full time employees working in the cyber security sector, up 37 per cent from 2017
• Total revenues within the sector have increased by 46 per cent to an estimated £8.3 billion. On average, revenue per employee reached £193,500 – an increase of 7 per cent since 2017
• 2019 was a record year for the sector with more than £348 million of investment
• Over the last four years (2016-19), total investment identified within the cyber security sector has exceeded £1.1 billion, demonstrating how confidence has grown in the industry

The UK Cyber Security Sectoral Analysis 2020 named Darktrace as one of the most successful UK cyber security companies, which is one of the country’s 77 tech ‘unicorns’ – a company valued at over $1 billion. Darktrace has its global head office in Cambridge as well as a US base in San Francisco and 44 offices around the world employing over 1,000 people.

Ahead of his speech at international cyber security conference SINET, Digital Minister Matt Warman said:

“It’s great to see our cyber security sector going from strength to strength. It plays a vital role in protecting the country’s thriving digital economy and keeping people safe online.

“We are committed to seeing it grow and are investing £1.9bn over five years through our National Cyber Security Strategy to make sure we lead the way in cyber innovation, develop and attract the best talent.”

Alongside GDPR industry adoption, this growth has been driven by a number of factors such as the UK’s world-leading technology sector, pro-innovation regulation, research and business-friendly environment.

Industry support from the private and public sectors has also played a key role in this success. The Government is delivering a range of initiatives to boost growth in the cyber security sector. These include Cyber ASAP which supports academics to commercialise their research, Tech Nation Cyber which is the UK’s first cyber scale-up programme and supports companies poised for substantial growth at home and abroad, and our Cyber101 programme which delivers bootcamps around the country to help cyber SMEs develop essential business skills.

The report also highlights the growing diversification of the UK cyber sector with the growth of emerging security sub-sectors focusing on areas such as the Internet of Things, centralised systems that control and monitor infrastructure or facility-based processes, and post-quantum cryptography.

NCSC Director National Resilience & Strategy Clare Gardiner said: “Our ambition is to make the UK the safest place to live and work online and it’s fantastic to see our cyber security industry flourishing.

“The NCSC will continue to support, encourage and facilitate cyber security research and innovation, and help attract the most diverse minds.”

Tech Nation Entrepreneur Success Director Mike Jackson said:“These latest figures released by DCMS highlight the growing strength of Cyber Security to the UK tech sector. It’s promising to see the number of cyber security firms increasing by 44% and the positive contribution this makes to the UK economy. At Tech Nation, we have the privilege of working with some of the UK’s most promising Cyber Security scaleups, who are utilising bleeding-edge technologies to offer new ways of improving security, and protecting businesses and individuals online.”

Darktrace CEO Poppy Gustafsson said: “The immense growth of the cyber security industry in recent years reflects the magnitude of the cyber challenge confronting organisations of every kind in modern society. Organisations have had no choice but to lean on AI that fights back on their behalf in the face of fast and sophisticated threats, and it is this appetite for what we call ‘autonomous response’ technology that has driven Darktrace’s exponential growth. As we start to see the early signs of attackers using AI, defensive AI will be critical, and not just a nice-to-have. The best algorithms will win many battles, but the cyber war will rage on.”

The UK Cyber Security Sectoral Analysis 2020 can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cyber-security-sectoral-analysis-2020 

Hanover Fair will be the first major indicator of the post-Brexit export environment for the UK’s technology exporters, and should be a welcome relief after the four-year hiatus created by the referendum.

Mark Ingham of Banbury-based Sensor Technology has been a regular exhibitor at the keynote German event for many years and says UK exhibitors at 2017, ‘18 and ‘19 shows all felt as if they were in a state of suspension.

“My company is a bit insulated from market fluctuations because our products address very specific needs,” he says. “But people with more mainstream products and markets definitely felt uncertain in the international arena.”

Now though with the post-Brexit landscape beginning to firm up both suppliers and buyers are feeling more confident that they can offer continuity into the medium and long term.

“I have already spoken to some 2020 exhibitors and there is definitely a feeling of increasing optimism and confidence. The conversation has moved on from ‘what is going to happen’ to ‘we are moving forward and its up to us to create our own success,” he says.

Sensor Technology makes a range of high tech torque sensors, most based on piezoelectric measurement of the Raleigh waves created by rotating shafts. However this year it will be using Hanover to introduce extensions to its opto-electric torque sensors, which can detect very small and highly transient changes in torque.

“People building mini- and micro-machines or those who use high speed or high precision motors will be most interested in out new sensors,” says Mark. “They will be able to see them first at Hanover and we are hopeful of considerable interest.”

Brüel & Kjær Sound & Vibration Measurement puts focus on the importance of realistic testing when developing and incorporating smart speaker functionality into consumer products.

An often-used method when testing speech intelligibility and sound quality in voice-operated devices is to measure the response accuracy rate (RAR), which is done by replaying recorded voice commands and evaluating how often the voice command is correctly perceived and responded to. A common approach is to use a standard loudspeaker and microphone, but this can give a false indication of the performance because it doesn’t accurately reproduce the directivity and frequency response of a human voice. The precise method is to use mouth and ear simulators.

“Fortunately, reproducing human speech is not a new challenge,” says Lars Birger Nielsen, Focus Market Manager Brüel & Kjær. “Acoustic engineers – and Brüel & Kjær – have wrestled with the issue for many years in the development of traditional communication devices and have developed standardised test methods for evaluating human communication.”

Brüel & Kjær offers market-leading products that facilitate more realistic speech synthesis and listening by faithfully reproducing human characteristics with very tight tolerances on accuracy to ensure repeatability. Its mouth and ear simulators – led by the new High-frequency Head and Torso Simulator (HATS) – accurately match human voice characteristics, thus ensuring quality and efficiency in smart device testing and development.

The compay’s High-frequency HATS Type 5218 family is the new standard in the field of product audio evaluation. Its capability of both issuing voice commands and measuring the quality of the smart speaker response makes fully automated testing of smart speakers and other voice operated devices possible. Brüel & Kjær also offers a Mouth Simulator Type 4227; a high-performance artificial mouth, which simulates human speech dispersion patterns.

Rotronic is a leading manufacturer of temperature, humidity, differential pressure and CO2 instrumentation

Rotronic products are specified throughout industry for the reliable measurement and control of processes; together with environmental monitoring. They are also installed in buildings of all types, research organisations, test houses and leisure facilities. High accuracy measurement, sensor stability and reliability are available as standard.

Technical specifications for the entire product range are readily available on the Rotronic website www.rotronic.co.uk.  The wide range comprises handhelds; loggers including the continuous environmental monitoring system (RMS) with all data available securely anywhere with alarms; probes suitable for all applications with wide measurement ranges; transmitters including ATEX rated sensors for potentially explosive environments with analogue and digital outputs for controllers, and meteorological sensors for external measurements for the building management system (BMS).

In the UK Rotronic has UKAS 0766 / ISO 17025 accreditation for temperature, humidity and dew point laboratory calibration to confirm individual sensor performance. Sensors can be adjusted if necessary, thereby ensuring long service life.

Rotronic Improves Energy Efficiency and Reduces Costs

Rotronic temperature and humidity probes with measurement capability -100…200 °C, 0…100 %rh ensure that processes are optimally controlled, saving both energy and running costs. Rotronic sensors provide measurements that are reliable for all applications.

Continuous Monitoring with RMS

Closely monitoring temperature and humidity levels in production processes, manufacturing facilities, cleanrooms, chilled stores, document archives, warehouses, swimming pools, HVAC systems with full alarms is conveniently possible with the Rotronic continuous environmental monitoring system (RMS). Across multiple company sites and locations too.

All data is recorded at the interval required and available remotely on any device, presented in the format required. The system is modular and can be extended with additional sensors at any time. Further parameters such as CO2 and oxygen can be added using fully integrated third-party devices. All data is secure; RMS conforms to FDA 21 CFR part 11.

There is a dedicated Rotronic microsite for the RMS monitoring solution: https://www.rotronic.com/en-gb/rms/

Rotronic is a company in the Process Sensing Technologies (PST) group of manufacturers providing unmatched instrumentation for process control and environmental monitoring; the group continues to expand.

Contact Rotronic to discuss your application or project:

T.  01293 571000  E.  instruments@rotronic.co.uk  W.  www.rotronic.co.uk

A British distribution company is pleased to report record sales last year, which can in part be attributed to a very successful partnership, which was forged at the beginning of the year.

On the 1 January 2019, Somerset based LIMAB UK was appointed the exclusive distributor for LumaSense Technologies, an Advanced Energy Company, for their range of infrared thermometers and thermal imagers for industrial markets in the UK and Ireland.

LIMAB UK is a leading distributor of non-contact laser and optical measuring systems for industrial applications. Their products and services are used by manufacturing companies to improve efficiency, reduce manufacturing costs and improve quality through measurement testing and process control. They have a wide range of laser sensors and measuring systems for in-process measurement of thickness, width, profile and dimensions, used extensively in the steel, sawmills, building materials and other industries.

LumaSense Technologies, one of the world’s most trusted providers of innovative infrared temperature and gas sensing devices was purchased by Advanced Energy in September 2018.

LumaSense Technologies, based in Germany, is a leading manufacturer of infrared thermometers and thermal imagers including the well-known and trusted brands of Impac pyrometers and Mikron thermal imaging cameras.

LIMAB UK, who were already the official distributors for the BETA LaserMike LaserSpeed range in the UK, Ireland and Benelux, NDC Technologies’ NIR moisture sensors and Dynascan’s seal integrity and leak detection solutions, approached LumaSense Technologies at the end of 2018.

LumaSense Technologies, who were at the time deciding whether to open a sales office in the UK or to appoint a UK distributor, decided to proceed with appointing a distributor and the partnership was formed. Peter Harvey, Channel manager at LumaSense Technologies, said: “We were delighted to have LIMAB UK as our distribution channel in the UK and Ireland, they have a track record of supplying precision optical and IR equipment for industrial measurement and understand the technology and the industrial market.”

LIMAB UK now distribute all of Advanced Energy’s Impac pyrometers and Mikron thermal imaging cameras, FurnaceSpection thermal imaging systems as well as blackbody calibration sources, and Luxtron fiber optic temperature probes and modules.

The addition of the LumaSense Technologies/Advanced Energy product range has seen LIMAB UK appoint a new Technical Sales Manager in the form of Jack Miller, who brings with him a wealth of machinery sales and customer service experience, which he developed at the manufacturing company CME. Jack Miller, technical sales manager at LIMAB UK said: “The new range of LumaSense Technologies/AE  products was an excellent complement to our existing range of laser and IR measuring sensors and systems. We were delighted to be appointed as distributor back in January and the partnership has proved to be very successful. We look forward to working with LumaSense Technologies moving forward and developing the partnership in 2020.”

To further shrink electronic devices and to lower energy consumption, the semiconductor industry is interested in using 2D materials, but manufacturers need a quick and accurate method for detecting defects in these materials to determine if the material is suitable for device manufacture. Now a team of researchers has developed a technique to quickly and sensitively characterise defects in 2D materials.

Two-dimensional materials are atomically thin, the most well-known being graphene, a single-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms.

“People have struggled to make these 2D materials without defects,” said Mauricio Terrones, Verne M. Willaman Professor of Physics, Penn State. “That’s the ultimate goal. We want to have a 2D material on a four-inch wafer with at least an acceptable number of defects, but you want to evaluate it in a quick way.”

The researchers’ — who represent Penn State, Northeastern University, Rice University and Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil – solution is to use laser light combined with second harmonic generation, a phenomenon in which the frequency of the light shone on the material reflects at double the original frequency. They add dark field imaging, a technique in which extraneous light is filtered out so that defects shine through. According to the researchers, this is the first instance in which dark field imaging was used, and it provides three times the brightness of the standard bright field imaging method, making it possible to see types of defects previously invisible.

“The localisation and identification of defects with the commonly used bright field second harmonic generation is limited because of interference effects between different grains of 2D materials,” said Leandro Mallard, a senior author on a recent paper in Nano Letters and a professor at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. “In this work we have shown that by the use of dark field SHG we remove the interference effects and reveal the grain boundaries and edges of semiconducting 2D materials. Such a novel technique has good spatial resolution and can image large area samples that could be used to monitor the quality of the material produced in industrial scales.”

Vincent H. Crespi, Distinguished Professor of Physics, Materials Science and Engineering, and Chemistry, Penn State, added, “Crystals are made of atoms, and so the defects within crystals — where atoms are misplaced — are also of atomic size.

“Usually, powerful, expensive and slow experimental probes that do microscopy using beams of electrons are needed to discern such fine details in a material,” said Crespi. “Here, we use a fast and accessible optical method that pulls out just the signal that originates from the defect itself to rapidly and reliably find out how 2D materials are stitched together out of grains oriented in different ways.”

Another coauthor compared the technique to finding a particular zero on a page full of zeroes.

“In the dark field, all the zeroes are made invisible so that only the defective zero stands out,” said Yuanxi Wang, assistant research professor at Penn State’s Materials Research Institute.

The semiconductor industry wants to have the ability to check for defects on the production line, but 2D materials will likely be used in sensors before they are used in electronics, according to Terrones. Because 2D materials are flexible and can be incorporated into very small spaces, they are good candidates for multiple sensors in a smartwatch or smartphone and the myriad of other places where small, flexible sensors are required.

“The next step would be an improvement of the experimental setup to map zero dimension defects — atomic vacancies for instance — and also extend it to other 2D materials that host different electronic and structural properties,” said lead author Bruno Carvalho, a former visiting scholar in Terrones’ group.

A team of researchers from Osaka University and Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research developed the world’s thinnest and lightest magnetic sensor matrix sheet system that visualises the two-dimensional distribution of magnetism on various surfaces.

Conventional magnetic sensor circuits consist of silicon-based hard electronic elements integrated on a substrate with a hardness similar to that of glass, meaning they can be only placed on flat surfaces.

Conversely, flexible soft magnetic sensors have also been developed, but there is no device integrating a driving circuit, sensor scanning mechanism, signal processing circuit, and wireless measurement unit, all of which are required to form a system. “This is because the fabrication of a flexible magnetic sensor element is difficult. Furthermore, it is hard to integrate the fabrication process with circuit technology,” explains lead author Masaya Kondo. The research is published in Science Advances.

Now, this joint research team has developed a thin and soft (“skin-like”) magnetic sensor matrix sheet system by integrating flexible electronic elements called organic transistors and giant magnetoresistive elements on a 1.5-μm-thick plastic film. This imperceptible circuit fabricated on a thin plastic film can be attached onto the skin of a person without causing discomfort and can function properly even when folded (Fig. 1).

The magnetic sensor matrix sheet system, with a sensitivity ten times higher than that of conventional systems, not only detects and amplifies weak magnetic signals, but also visualizes the two-dimensional distribution of magnetism in real time by automatically scanning magnetic sensor elements arranged in a matrix pattern (Fig. 2).

Among physical information, magnetic information obtained via a two-dimensional sheet-type magnetic sensor system is much more precise than electrical information because magnetic sensors have high spatial resolution due to the high permeability of magnetism in substances. A sheet-type sensor provides high-precision physical information as it can be adhered to a variety of objects regardless of shape.

“Attaching our sheet-type sensor to a reinforced structure identifies the precise locations of damage by mapping the distortion of magnetism caused by deteriorated reinforcing steel bars. Also, once the sensitivity of the sensor is improved further, higher precision cardiac diagnosis will be achieved by magnetic mapping than by conventional electrocardiography,” says Prof. Sekitani, who led the study.

MPs and policymakers will be urged at a dinner at the Houses of Parliament to re-focus efforts to boost the UK’s manufacturing and technology sectors after a lengthy period of uncertainty caused by the prolonged discussions over Brexit.

The jointly organised Bessemer Society and Foundation for Science & Technology dinner aims to seed thoughts among parliamentarians and policymakers about how they can support and sustain innovation companies involved in developing the enabling technologies for future product applications. Chaired by the politician, life peer and academic Lord David Willetts, the event will bring together speakers from a range of ‘hard-tech’ companies, all of whom are actively bringing new products to market.

Alex Stewart, the founder of the Bessemer Society, the forum and mutual society which brings together entrepreneurs committed to creating new companies based on technological innovation, said the dinner would act as a timely reminder of the importance of manufacturing and technology in the post-Brexit era.

“With Brexit taking up much of our politicians’ time and effort, now is an excellent time to remind them that the UK is still the eighth largest manufacturing economy in the world and a hotbed of innovation and creativity. Vital to its competitiveness are the companies which develop the critical enabling technologies in areas like semiconductors, biosciences, materials and engineering, which we call ‘hard tech’.

“The problem is they face much greater difficulties than their digital and service innovation counterparts, because the time-to-market for CAPEX-related companies is much longer, and the risks for investors therefore higher. The question is, what can be done by the government to encourage more long-term investment in the sector? These are the sorts of issues that will be debated at the Houses of Parliament event.”

The dinner, which takes place on 27 February and is by private invitation, includes speakers such as Dr Drew Nelson, chief executive of semiconductor supplier IQE; Dr Gordon Sanghera, chief executive of biomedical sequencing technology provider Oxford Nanopore; and Isobel Sheldon, director of business development at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre.