A National Seminar on Recent Advancements in Electronics was held on 31 March 2017 in the main auditorium of the institute. The seminar was conducted by the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology. The seminar consisted of speakers from diverse areas such as academia, industry and defence who gave an insight in the latest developments happening in their respective fields. The seminar was attended by the ECE students as well as the faculty members of the department.

Speaker Name	Designation	Topic of presentation
Prof. Anurag Sharma	HoD, Physics, IIT Delhi	Light at Work
Dr. (Mrs.) S. Shekhar	Associate Director, (ER & IPR, DRDO), Delhi	Electronic Warfare and Defence
Mr. Ish K. Bhargava	Managing Director, India Operations & Founder, Spectross Digital Systems Pvt Ltd.	High Performance Reconfigurable Computing
Dr. R.K. Sharma	Director, SSPL, DRDO, Delhi	Indigenous Semiconductor Technologies for Defence Applications

The seminar started with the lighting of the lamp by various dignitaries in front of Mother Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge. This was followed by welcome address by Prof. R.S. Gupta, convenor of this National Seminar. Thereafter, Prof. (Dr.) Neelam Sharma, Director & HoD, ECE Dept, addressed the audience. She started her address by thanking all the speakers for giving their valuable time. She also thanked Dr. R. S. Gupta for arranging the sponsorship by the Society for Microelectronics & VLSI and IEEE-EDS Delhi chapter. Then, Dr. M. L. Goyal, Director General, MAIT, talked about the need to stay updated about the current advancements in the field of Electronics and Semiconductors. He remarked about the changing nature of technology and the scale of development from 1965 to 2017. He talked about the remarkable achievements in size, speed, capacity, cost, reach, quality, power consumption and ease of operation in various consumer electronic devices of today. He talked about the impact technology has on a person, a society and a nation. Dr. Sunil Mathur gave vote of thanks and once again thanked all the speakers for sharing their knowledge and giving their valuable time. He thanked Director General, MAIT for his cooperation and constant support. He also thanked all the faculty members and staff for their contribution in organizing the seminar.

The first talk in the seminar was of Prof. Anurag Sharma, HoD, Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He gave a lecture on “Light at work”. He called light as an ‘enabling technology’ that has helped in many important discoveries such as Astronomy, Medical Sciences and Physics etc. He talked about the history of LASERs and how LASRES have made a very important contribution in our lives and in technologies such as CD-ROMs, Guidance, and Ranging etc. He also talked about the LEDs and how the LEDs have revolutionized lighting in terms of cost and efficiency. He also talked about Holography and how it works. In the end, he touched upon fibre optics and how it has been changing the way we communicate.

The second speaker was Dr. (Mrs.) Sellammal Shekhar, Associate Director ER & IPR, DRDO. She gave a lecture on “Electronic Warfare and Defence”. She first explained the concept of electronic warfare and also laid down the objectives of electronic warfare. She explained about different types of Electronic Warfare such as Electronic Attack, Electronic Counter-Counter Measures and Electronic Support Measures. She talked about the need for a nation to have a dedicated electronic warfare capability. She also mentioned about other domains of warfare such as Cyber and Space warfare. In the end, she gave examples of various types of Electronic Warfare systems and motivated the students to join DRDO to strengthen the National Defence.

The third speaker was Mr. Ish K. Bhargava, Managing Director, India Operations & Founder, Spectross Digital Systems Pvt Ltd. He gave a lecture on “High Performance Reconfigurable Computing”. He started his lecture by explaining the various types of processors available such as CPU, GPU and FPGA. He defined each of the above and compared their characteristics with each other. He then proceeded to concentrate on FPGAs as they have faster processing speed, higher power saving, higher affordability, etc. He then talked about the applications of FPGA in high speed computing and the ease of re-programmability of the FPGAs. He also showed the students the FPGA based computer his company had developed. It had numerous features such as ease of operation, various methods of input (Command Line Interface or Graphic User Interface or E-Application). In the end, he requested the students to take part in research activities targeted toward making India an electronics hub.

The fourth and the final speaker was Dr. R. K. Sharma, Director, Solid State Physics Laboratory, DRDO. He gave a lecture on Indigenous Semiconductor Technologies for Defence Applications. He started off by explaining on the role of his laboratory. He then showed the various products that his laboratory had made such as Transreceiver Modules, High Speed Data Links, Directed Energy Weapons Components. He talked about the cutting edge research in the laboratory which is being supervised by him and this laboratory was currently working on MMIC, ASIC/ROIC High Power TWT, Microwave Amplifiers etc. He also talked about various other systems such as MEMS sensors, High Power LASER diodes, Monolithic µ/mm wave ICs. He informed the audience about the latest GaN technology and how it was widely replacing other technologies in diverse fields such as Phased Array Radar, Electronic Warfare & Communication System, Data Links, Smart Antenna, Impulse Radar, Pulse Band Ultra Wide Band Radar. He also showed the various machines necessary for the fabrication of the ICs in the laboratory. In the end, he motivated the students to join DRDO after completing their education and thus to contribute in nation building.

The entire seminar was jointly anchored by Ms. Sonia Jain and Ms. Vatsala Khanna Arya, faculty members, ECE Department.