You won't see the "Test & Measurement" section in this issue. As the name implies, this section carried technology tutorials and technical articles about test and measurement solutions.

In a way, the Test & Measurement section has been a subset of the much bigger "Design Corner" section that carries technical articles for the whole electronics design realm. The two sections went side by side since the launch of EE Times-Asia in October 2000.

However, the electronics design industry has evolved since then. Test technologies have become an integral part of the design value chain.

Moreover, while the Design Corner section encompasses the entire design landscape, test and measurement technologies are more of a specialty, like power, RF and automotive. So we are merging the Test & Measurement into Design Corner with the premise that test-related technologies are an intrinsic part of the design world.

Design corner umbrella
We will continue to regularly feature test and measurement-related tutorials, design ideas and technical solutions under the Design Corner umbrella. And they will have a better representation in the neighborhood of other critical areas like video, embedded, EDA and industrial control.

Furthermore, each article in the Design Corner section has its focus area featured as its eyebrow over the title. For instance, if an article is about data acquisition, it will have the eyebrow as DATA ACQUISITION, thus highlighting for the readers that it is a measurement-related article.

Four for all
As for our digital magazine, www.eetasia.com, we are launching a forum with four topic categories.

One of the forum topics is about the future of design in the Philippines, a market long known for back-end assembly and test operations. Over a decade ago, a number of design houses emerged in and around Manila and in locations like Cebu. The forum will bring greater insight into how these design houses work and how designers in the Philippines are catching up with the rest of the electronics world.

The second forum topic will deal with the mystic Vietnam. What is the lure of this emerging market? What does Vietnam offer that an increasing number of semiconductor companies are setting up and expanding operations over there? We will try to reach engineering management and engineers on the ground to bring an accurate picture of the state of engineering design in Vietnam.

On the technical side, the third forum topic is MCUs, a predominant part of system design in Asia. What is the role of MCUs in Asian design? What are the latest trends and developments in this segment? We will be looking for the answers.

The fourth forum will be on FPGAs, another critical design area. FPGAs have come a long way in terms of applications, processing capability and architectures. What is next for FPGAs and what role will FPGAs play in the system design space in Asia? Industry experts will offer design tips and their perspectives on key technical issues.

We invite you to express your views and talk about design challenges and solutions in these forums. And EE Times-Asia editors will be there at every step to moderate these discussions.

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