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he 5th IEEE Workshop on Wide Bandgap Power Devices and Applications (WiPDA, www.wipda.org), sponsored by IEEE and PSMA, was successfully held from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort near Albuquerque, NM.
WIPDA is a fast-growing annual event which provides a forum for device scientists, circuit designers, and application engineers to share technology updates, research findings, development experience, and application knowledge.
As in past years, WiPDA covered a wide range of topics related to wide-bandgap power electronics, including but not limited to:
- Heteroepitaxial and bulk materials growth
- Gate dielectrics and surface passivation
- Device structures and fabrication techniques
- Device characterization and modeling
- Very high efficiency and compact converters
- SOAs including short-circuit, spike, and transient tolerance
- Harsh environment (e.g. high temperature) operation and reliability
- Packaging, power modules, and ICs
- Hard-switched and soft-switched applications
- Common-mode and EMI management
- Gate drive and other auxiliary circuits
- High-performance passive components
- Applications in renewable energy and storage, transportation, industrial drives, and grid power systems
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The number of WIPDA attendees has grown quickly over the last five years, with attendees coming from multiple disciplines including materials science, device fabrication, power circuits, and system applications. Over 200 attendees participated in the workshop this year, including representatives from industry, academia, government, and research institutions. Attendees came from the United States as well as numerous other countries. Nine industrial and institutional partners provided support to the conference.
WiPDA 2017 maintained the arrangement from previous years and included tutorials, keynote talks, panel discussions, oral technical sessions, a poster session and banquet, standards meetings, and an exhibition.
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There were seven tutorials covering both device and application topics, from fundamental knowledge to the frontier research trends. The tutorial speakers were from both academic institutions (Purdue University, North Carolina State University, Virginia Tech, and University of Alabama) and industry (John Deere, Texas Instruments, and Infineon Technologies). The WIPDA 2017 keynote sessions featured eight distinguished speakers from ARPA-E, Navitas Semiconductor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, PowerAmerica, Ford, Infineon, and Texas Instruments, who shared their experiences and visions on SiC and GaN development and applications from different angles as the device manufacturer, the equipment designer, the researcher, and the system integrator. Additionally, two panel sessions focused on high-voltage SiC and high-frequency GaN, and included leading experts from US federal agencies, industry, and academia. The technical program consisted of 50 oral presentations and 21 posters, representing 10 countries. Each presentation or poster will be available on IEEE Xplore.
This year's poster session and banquet were held at the Cottonwoods Pavilion, located on the Tamaya grounds along the banks of the Rio Grande River. Further, IEEE's International Technology Roadmap for Wide Bandgap Semiconductors (ITRW) working group met at the workshop. Finally, an exhibition consisting of ten different companies and agencies paticipanted in WIPDA2017.
As in past years, WiPDA again provided student travel grants to encourage student participation in the conference and promote education in the area of wide-bandgap power electronics. 16 students received these awards, out of a total of 60 student participants, supported equally by PELS and PSMA.
WiPDA 2018 will be hosted by Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and is tentatively scheduled for November 5-7, 2018. Please check www.wipda.org for information and updates. We look forward to your participation at next year's exciting event!
Provided by Dr. Fang Luo,
Publicity Chair WiPDA 2017
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