Many of the UK’s leading automation and motion engineering companies have shown their confidence in the future of the industry by booking substantial stands for the 2010 Drives & Controls show, which takes place at the Birmingham NEC from 8–10 June.

Siemens is planning to axe more than 1,100 jobs in its drives technologies division in Germany as it restructures and adjusts to what it describes as “an ongoing slump in volume in the key mechanical engineering market”. Some 840 of these jobs will be lost at its Bad Neustadt an der Saale plant as it centralises production of high-efficiency IE2 motors at its Mohelnice site in the Czech Republic. Another 300 positions will be lost at a plant in Erlangen that produces drive electronics.

Mitsubishi Electric claims to have developed the world’s highest-capacity IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) power module by combining silicon carbide (SiC) diodes with silicon transistors. It says that the 1.2kA/1.7kV module is more efficient than earlier designs and could lead to smaller, lighter inverters.

A British motor-maker that specialises in pancake motors has developed a new generation of motors that, it says, will compete on price with conventional DC and universal motors. Through a combination of “intelligent” design and efficient manufacturing techniques, Hampshire-based Printed Motor Works (PMW) says it has cut the cost of its low-profile motors substantially.