he 3rd The IEEE Workshop on Wide Bandgap Power Devices and Applications (WIPDA) provided a forum for device scientists, circuit designers, and application engineers o share technology updates, research findings, development experience and potential applications. The workshop was held in Blacksburg Virginia November 2 -4, 2015 and was sponsored by IEEE PELS, IEEE EDS and PSMA.

Rolando Burgos from Virginia Tech was General Chair for the workshop and reported that WiPDA2015 was a major success and exceeded expectations. Attendance which was over 200 was significantly higher than last year (~120) and more than the expected 150. About 75% of the attendees were from North America with 13% from Europe and about 11% from Asia/Pacific.

The workshop lasted two full days plus a tutorial session day preceding the workshop. The tutorial sessions were well attended with 110 total attendees for the two parallel sessions. On Monday morning, a large group participated in a CPES lab tour including interaction with about 50 graduate students. The visitors learned about the lab set ups and research.

During the two-day conference, 10 keynote speakers presented the state of the art and vision of WBG semiconductors, while 95 technical papers/posters were presented. Due to the larger than expected number of papers, the program was expanded from the originally planned two to three parallel sessions.

Members of the PSMA Semiconductor Technical Committee were active participants in the workshop and the technical exhibition, coordinated by PSMA, had seven exhibitors resulting in information on the latest products available and provided additional revenues for the conference.

Rolando Burgos and his Conference Committee are to be commended for their planning and support. The conference was not only well planned but also well executed with positive feedback from the attendees and the exhibitors. This year’s conference provided a good reference point for the WiPDA2016 conference, which will be hosted by the University of Arkansas and held in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The exact dates for the conference are still being worked on, but should be early in November 2016 and information for the Call for Papers will be available soon.

Provided by Joe Engle, Efficient Power Conversion and Ranbir Singh, GeneSiC

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