ach of the PSMA Technical Committees provided updates on the recent activities of their committees at the Annual Meeting at APEC 2018 in San Antonio, TX. In addition, each Committee also held individual meetings during the week of APEC 2018.

Fred Weber, Capacitor Committee Co-Chair, reported that the committee has organized a seven speaker Industry Session with the theme of "Capacitor Technologies for Emerging Power Conversion Applications". The committee also held a successful workshop on the Saturday prior to start of APEC2018 with over 50 registrations. The committee is meeting during the week to review the workshop, plan for a follow-up workshop at APEC2019 and discuss the theme and subjects for the upcoming year.

Mike Hayes and Brian Zahnstecher, Energy Harvesting Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the committee now has 34 members and been meeting monthly via teleconference. The committee supported the 2017 PSMA Power Technology Roadmap and has organized a seven presentation Industry Session at APEC 2018 with the theme "Energy Harvesting and Ultra-Low Power Management is Real and of Fast Growing Relevance for the PE Community". The Industry Session will includes a Live Demo with hardware, models and systems. The committee is also planning for EnerHarv 2018 – the Inaugural International Energy Harvesting Workshop to be held in Cork, Ireland May 29 – 31. The workshop will follow the successful format used by the PwrSoC workshops to grow their events.

Patrick Le Fevre, Energy Management Committee Co-Chair, reported the committee is the result of the merger of the Alternate Energy and Energy Efficiency committees. Because of personal circumstances, both of the past Committee co-chairs had to withdrew from the committee in the past month. As a result, the committee was not able to support their planned Industry Session for APEC 2018 but continues to support the efforts to update the Energy Efficiency Data Base that is available on the PSMA web site. Arnold Alderman, provided a brief update of the current status of the Energy Efficiency Data Base.

The Industry-Education Committee has primarily focused for the last several years on the APEC Student Travel Support, initiated by PSMA and now jointly sponsored with IAS and PELS.  Joe Horzepa reviewed the objectives of the committee which are to promote interaction between power electronics students and industry and to promote power electronics to university and pre-university students. He discussed the need for PSMA members to take a more active role in encouraging students at the high school levels to consider the opportunities for a career in power electronics and to encourage qualified candidates to pursue a degree in the field. He challenged the attendees to join the Industry Education Committee and to initiate special projects focused on middle and high school students that highlight the potential of a career in the power electronics industry.

Steve Carlsen, Magnetics Committee Co-Chair, reported that the committee has held monthly meeting this past year and organized a seven presentation Industry Session for APEC 2018. Under the leadership of Matt Wilkowski and Ed Herbert, the committee, with technical support from IEEE PELS, organized a third very successful one-day workshop the day prior to APEC2018. Steve presented a brief summary report on the "Power Magnetics@ High Frequency – Eliminating the Smoke and Mirrors" workshop. The workshop was attended by 160 people – 85% were from Industry and 15% were from Academia. A fourth workshop is being planned for APEC 2019.

Greg Evans, Marketing Committee Co-Chair, provided an overview of the committee and highlighted some of the activities on its current agenda. The committee updated and printed a new Membership Brochure and continued the Passport program at APEC2018. The Board approved the expenditure for a PSMA Exhibit Booth at PCIM 2018. He also briefly reviewed a study to categorize Semiconductor Companies as Regular Members and reduce the number of membership levels. This issue will be further discussed at this month's BOD meeting.

Power Electronics Packaging Committee Co-Chair, Brian Narveson, reviewed the activities and results of the committee this past year. It has been an outstanding year with the publication of a Phase 3 Technology Report on Embedded Power Components, organizing of a 7-presentaion Industry Sessions for APEC 2018, organizing the Second 3D PEIM Symposium in June, providing financial and technical support for PwrSoC 2018. The committee is also providing support for the 2019 Power Technology Roadmap. Brian presented a brief overview of the Phase 3 Technology Report which will be a Plenary Presentation at APEC 2018. Finally, he provided an update on the Second PEIM Symposium scheduled for June 27 – 27, 2018 at University of Maryland in College Park.

Dhaval Dalal and Conor Quinn, Power Technology Roadmap Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the committee has begun work on the 2019 Power Technology Roadmap Report and will hold a planning meeting later this week to review and assign champions for the major segments in the next report as well as identifying possible Webinars topics and presenters in support of the report.  The committee is planning to contract with a qualified industry consultant on Surveys to organize, administer and provide a summary of the effort that will also include input from Asia (China) organizations. The committee is currently seeking volunteers to join the committee and contribute to the 2019 PSMA Power Technology Roadmap effort.

Tony O'Brien and Brian Zahnstecher, Reliability Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the new committee has monthly meetings and has 19 members from the industry. The initial focus of the committee has been to conduct a survey to identify and rank the major concerns relative to reliability and quality. Based on analysis of survey results the committee will consider sponsoring a Special Project that addresses the key issues. The committee has agreed to contribute to the next Power Technology Roadmap effort and to sponsor a Webinar on one or more Quality/Reliability topics.

Safety & Compliance Committee Co-Chairs, Kevin Parmenter and Jim Spangler, reported that the committee is active and organizing a 7 Presentation Session and a 4 Presentations Session at APEC2018. The committee has also supported the 2019 Power Technology Roadmap with a webinar on TUV standards. The committee continues to promote and support the Safety and Compliance Data base on the web site which is updated on a continuing basis as well as adding additional agencies that are tracked.

Tim McDonald, Co-Chair of the Semiconductor Committee, reported the committee has been very active this past year and has organized two Industry Sessions -the first is a 7-presentation Industry session focusing on latest advancements in device and package technology for high power, high frequency switching devices. The second 6-presentation Industry Session is titled "Reliability and Ruggedness – How to Address These Challenges in Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Devices". The committee has been supporting the 2019 PSMA Power Technology project and is organizing webinars for the project. The committee will also participate and sponsor the 2018 WIPDA (Workshop on Wide Bandgap Power Devices and Applications) workshop.to be held in Atlanta, GA October 31 to November 2, 2018. In addition, during the current year, the committee is considering organizing a Special Projects that would be of benefit to the industry.

Ralph Taylor and Fred Weber, Transportation Power Electronics Committee Co-Chairs, , reported the committee has been very active this past year and organized a 7-Presentation Industry Session with a theme entitled: "Vehicle Batteries; It's more than just stacking cells together and an EVI Retrospective". The presenters are from the major automotive manufacturers and experts from the industry. The committee has begun to identify possible themes for APEC 2019 and is discussing means to generate more awareness of PSMA to the automotive industry

More information about the PSMA committees was made available during the week at the individual committee meetings. PSMA members and guests were encouraged to attend these meetings to learn more about the committees and to help plan activities for the coming year.

All of the PSMA Technical Committee meetings are held via webconference and are open to individuals interested in learning about and participating in the work of the committees. This is an excellent way to network with others and to influence the technical direction of the committees.

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