Digikey sent me a note about a TI seminar next month in St. Paul. Free admission using the Digi-key discount code- 100DISC-DK.

There are some amazingly awesome topics to be presented, including LiIon batteries, low-power wireless, high-power LED design, and others.

Many of these topics will be out of reach for hobby level participants, but it can't hurt to scan the list!

I totally just registered, I think this is the seminar that my buddy went to last year and was gifted with a prototyping microcontroller! It normally costs a hundred buck to attend so great find Mike!!

whoot! i'll be going to a few morning sessions for work. great catch, thanks.

Best possible price. What's not to like?

Bah humbug! I saw the seminar before but didn't have the $99, now I find I can go free...then I finally check my calendar and realize I'm booked full with my last day of classes then...doh!

I'm registered!!!

Here is the schedule I signed up for:

Personal Agenda

Thursday, May 7

Illuminating Facts About High Power LEDs, Both Visible and Invisible 9:00 AM-10:00 AM

Designing Power Drivers for Solid State Lighting (LED’s) 10:30 AM-11:30 AM

Introduction to Digital Power 1:00 PM-2:00 PM

Choose Your Weapon – Selecting an Optimal MOSFET 2:15 PM-3:15 PM

Li-Ion Battery Characteristics, Trends and Its' Fuel gauge and Cell Balance in Multi-cell Battery Packs 3:30 PM-4:30 PM

Thanks for the tip, Uptownmaker! I enjoyed the conference! A writeup is in the works, watch this space...

there were some great things and some not so about it. the two sessions i went to (osram on leds and ti on led drivers) were somewhat opposites.

osram didn't get very much into anything i didn't know dealing in passing with leds for illumination, and they actually got a few things incorrect for lighting with leds. they were a little scattered in terms of getting info out, some bits were really interesting, but it felt a little intro to our product line rather than useful product info. i'd have liked more development roadmap and explanation of why they were using near phosphors vs deposited vs close remote phosphors and the implications of those on cost and efficiency, and a more accurate explanation of thermal issues and junction temperature not being "operating temperature"

the drivers thing was better, but a bit above my head for circuit design, i think it could have communicated more by discussing more of what leds need and the direct pros and cons of various power sources, and dealing with them, rather than too small circuit layouts on PPT. imho if you knew what certain terms were, you probably didn't' need the circuit layout, but if you didn't it was too small to read. folks seemed to either know lots about it and be making asides (which were educational themselves) or asking questions that showed some lack of understanding of what was being explained (not on topic, vs asking for clarity)

the vegetarian lunch selection was lousy, but the ceasar was passable and the company was excellent. i left 5 minutes into the keynote speaker when he hadn't said anything yet, since i couldn't justify any of the afternoon sessions as work related.

got a few samples from osram, and a widget i'm not sure what it is, and a thumb drive.

for those of you who didn't/couldn't make it in theory the presentations are all on a DVD we got, although i haven't looked to see if it's just the slides, or there's written/spoken content too.

Everyone, the presentations at the local Technology Day are now online at http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/tec ... chdays2009 .

I went to this seminar last year and it was also hit-or-miss. The most useful part was making some industry contacts with FAEs and TI reps for getting questions answered and lining up samples.