The title of this paper is certainly not very new, imaginative or original.
Silent Electronics? Thingking of a rock band with tens of kW of music power electronics or a 1000 kW short-wave radio station spreading political slogans makes one shudder and doubt this description. But this paper is dealing striuctly with industrial electronics. However, thinking of the squealing noise emitted by some frequency controlled drive system or variable frequency chopper, the word "silent" meaning quiet is, at least sometimes the wrong description.
Unfortunately, power electronics is "silent" in the negative sense of "not noticed" by the public and not heard by the decision makers. There is an old saying: Silent babies are getting less milk, less attention and less love; silent babies stay weaker and grow less than their louder brothers.
Nowadays large, important and expensive technologies are made, carried through, fed or starved out not only by engineers and their managers but by the media, politicians, administrations, by the public and ultimately the tax payer.
Power electronics must be heard, promoted and sponsored according to its paramount technical and economic importance. Therefore, we must speak up, we must explain, we must be heard.
Let's trigger a few more thoughts with this worn title: Unnoticed revolutions are either no revolutions or particularly dangerous ones.
If we continue as before, if we stay silent and don't wake up any body, our domain "power electronics" might soon be governed by firms and nations from outside Europe.
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