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he 2019 PSMA Planning Meeting was held on October 5, 2019 at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside in New Orleans, LA with 24 members in attendance. The purpose of the Planning Meeting was to review where the Association is today, discuss outstanding issues and to identify possible programs and projects that promise to bring value to the membership.
PSMA Chairman Stephen Oliver led the meeting and reviewed his vision for the organization and summarized the general health of the association as well as membership statistics and the changes since the 2018 Planning Meeting. He listed organizations PSMA interacts with, reviewed recent sponsored conferences and workshops and emphasized that the technical committees are the heart of the organization. It is in these committees that the real work of PSMA is done.
In discussing some of the areas of concern to the organization he highlighted the need to continue to invest in special projects that will bring value to our members, increase the effort to develop more and deeper involvement with more individuals within member companies and the continued commitment to bring more industry content to APEC. Stephen reported on the progress of the "Tiger Teams", powerful, agile groups of experts brought together for a single, short project, formed out of the 2018 Planning Meeting. He noted that the Tiger Team list will be reviewed and updated at the end of the meeting based on the topics identified during the meeting.
Tim McDonald, Secretary/Treasurer, presented a preliminary draft of the latest 6-Quarter financial forecast, which indicated that the Association will remain in a reasonable financial position over the period which will allow funding to support Special Projects that promise to bring value to the membership and the industry. There was a report from each of the technical committees that summarized their accomplishments over the past year and focused on ongoing programs and projects for 2020. Eight of the technical committees have submitted proposals to organize Industry Sessions at APEC 2020 and all technical committees are supporting the 2021 Power Technology Roadmap effort. In addition: - Pierre Lohrber, Capacitor Committee Co-Chair, reported that the committee has completed 2 educational webinars on Capacitor Fundamentals, and is planning a third webinar in January. They are also organizing the third pre-APEC workshop "How to Choose and Define Capacitor Usage for Various Applications, Wideband Trends, and New Technologies"
- Energy Harvesting Committee Co-Chairs Mike Hayes and Brian Zahnstecher reported that the committee is organizing EnerHarv 2020 to be held at NCSU in June 2020. The committee is hoping to organize a student competition and looking for volunteers to help with this effort.
- David Chen and Ed Herbert, Energy Management Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the committee is considering a potential research project for 2020 on residential energy storage or a report summarizing worldwide standards and regulations. The committee continues to support the Energy Efficiency Database (EEDB) on the PSMA website.
- An Industry-Education meeting was held prior to the main planning meeting which had active participation and suggestions from all attendees. In recent years the committee has primarily focused on APEC Student Travel Support, but there is a lot of interest in expanding the committee activities. Following up on the face-to-face meeting, there will be a teleconference in November for all interested members to develop specific programs and activities aimed at students to help them to better understand the power industry and making informed career decisions.
- Ed Herbert, Magnetics Committee Co-Chair, reported that the committee held a very successful Magnetics Workshop at APEC 2019 and is organizing a fifrth Power Magnetics @ High Frequency Workshop, for the Saturday before APEC 2020. The committee is also working on a Special Project with SMA on core testing and continues to support the Magnetics reprints available from the PSMA website.
- Frank Cirolia and Greg Evans, Marketing Committee Co-Chair, reviewed the recent activities of the committee including plans for APEC 2020. For the seventh year, the committee will sponsor the "PSMA Passport Game" to increase visibility and traffic to PSMA member exhibit booths during APEC and is exploring options for including the Passport in the APEC app in the future. A major focus at APEC 2020 will be on PSMA turning 35, including a "birthday party" at the PSMA booth in the Expo Hall, a memory wall, a large display that participants can sign listing what they appreciate about PSMA, an interactive timeline video and more. The committee is also supporting the 35th Anniversary article and podcast project which will include 12 monthly feature-length articles in Electronic Design and 8-10 podcasts published by EEWorld. A new PSMA logo is being designed and the proposed logo is currently being reviewed. And the committee is working to update the "Handbook of Standardized Terminology" and considering making it web based.
- The Power Electronics Packaging Committee continues to be very active, with 2-4 meetings a month, as reported by committee Co-Chair, Ernie Parker. IWIPP 2019 in Toulouse in April was very successful with over 90 attendees (target was 70). The committee is organizing the 3D-PEIM 2020 Symposium to be held in Osaka Japan in June. The committee is also planning for PwrSoC 2020 at the University of Pennsylvania and PwrPack, a mini PwrSoC, at Arizona State University in October 2019.
- Conor Quinn, Power Technology Roadmap Committee Co-Chair, reported that the 2019 Power Technology Roadmap Report was published in March and was the subject of a Plenary Presentation at APEC 2019. The PTR 2021 Committee will be formed in December 2019. The committee will include both returning Section Leaders and New Blood – volunteers and nominees are welcome. A new PTR webinar series will begin in January of 2020 and continue through the year. The 2021 Power Technology Roadmap Report needs to be finalized by December of 2020 and the report will be published in March, in time for APEC 2021.
- Reliability Committee Co-Chair Brian Zahnstecher reported that the committee was formed in July 2017 and now has 27 members. The Power Supply SW/FW Reliability report was recently completed and a copy was sent to all PSMA Regular members. The committee's next proposed project is to create and publish a document (or series of documents) to enhance procedures for development, interaction, and verification of communication bus to improve Quality & Reliability.
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- While the Safety & Compliance Committee is not meeting currently and looking for new leadership, the committee continues to support the Safety and Compliance Data Base (SCDB)on the PSMA website. Arnold Alderman provided an update on the SCDB. The database continues to grow both in the number of standards, regions and agencies tracked and the number of registered users. Committee members also contribute a monthly column in How2Power.
- Semiconductor Committee Co-Chair Tim McDonald reported that the committee has proposed 4 Industry Sessions for APEC 2020. The committee will manage the Component Technology section of the 2021 Power Technology Roadmap Report and plans to contribute a minimum of 6 webinars for the Roadmap webinar series. The committee is also supporting as technical and financial co-sponsor with IEEE PELS the WiPDA Workshop in Raleigh, NC.
- Fred Weber, Transportation Power Electronics Committee Co-Chair, report that the committee is planning a webinar on what the DOE is doing to enable electrification of vehicles and their infrastructure. The committee supported a 2019 study of automotive executives and engineers. The results were clear – few in this industry were aware of PSMA and/or APEC. If PSMA wants to reach this segment, a clearly stated business case for automotive OEMs and Tier 1s to join PSMA is needed. A flyer will be created to help in those efforts and a tiger team is suggested to help drive this initiative to expand PSMA membership in the Automotive Industry.
During the Committee Reports a number of issues and possible future activities were identified and discussed. These issues will be the focus for PSMA over the next year (and beyond). Following the committee reports, PSMA President Mike Hayes led the Planning Discussion which focused on updating the Tiger Teams lists based on initiatives and topics identified during the meeting. PSMA members can view the minutes of the Planning Meeting on the "Members Only" section of the PSMA web site. The APEC Technical Program Committee for APEC 2020 met on Sunday and were joined by many of the PSMA members from the Planning Meeting. Based on the results of their work we can all look forward to a very interesting and a successful APEC 2020.
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