Microchip Technology, a provider of microcontroller and analogue semiconductors, garnered record attendance at the recently concluded Microchip's Annual Strategic Technical Exchange Review (MASTERs) conference series, now in its 11th year, with nearly 3,000 embedded designers attending 13 separate conferences that were held in four different languages across seven countries.
The MASTERs conferences are part of the larger University of Microchip program that also includes a worldwide network of more than 35 Microchip Regional Training Centres, a rich e-learning library of 100+ on-demand Web seminars, and regular hands-on workshops from Microchip and its distribution partners.
"The MASTERs conferences are focused on providing immersive and comprehensive technical training sessions for engineers that are delivered by Microchip's resident experts," said Ken Pye, vice president of Worldwide Applications Engineering for Microchip.
"For those unable to attend any of the 13 MASTERs events we held in 2007, the University of Microchip program offers year-round training opportunities through our local Regional Training Centres and online seminars."
Attendee feedback on the 100 topics being offered across 585 separate sessions was positive.
After concluding 30 days of classes, Microchip's expert instructors found that connectivity topics were among the popular with the 2,872 engineers in attendance.
Courses covered the gamut of electronic engineering topics, including embedded applications for USB, Ethernet, Controller Area Networks (CANs), wireless (e.g. ZigBee networking), QVGA/graphics displays, capacitive touch sensing, programming techniques, signal conditioning, oscillators, motor control, intelligent power-supply design and incorporating speech and other DSP-based functions.
Additional activities included a host of opportunities for engineers to network with their peers and a wide range of Microchip's experts.
The conferences also featured an exhibit area with third-party development tool experts and a simulated wafer fab plant tour.
Many of the conferences included evening activities for attendees and their families, such as Moonbase 2020 interactive demonstrations from the Challenger Space Centre, hover mouse building and races, magician performances, robot competitions, Scalextric digital slot cars, casino tables and sports-bar and video games.