APEC

PSMA Meeting Schedule during APEC 2024

rev. 1/10/24                     Please note any changes to this schedule at the last minute will be posted on APEC monitors.

APEC 2024, in Long Beach next February, is truly back to pre-COVID activity. Following the unfortunately-late cancellation of APEC 2020 in New Orleans and the need to accommodate the pandemic-mandated restrictions in the years following, our 2023 event in Orlando was the first to show a return to the conference's constant year-on-year growth. Never has power electronics been more in the forefront of electronics design and packaging and APEC 2024 is sizing up to be bigger than it's ever been. A full two months before registration opens in October, the booth space in the exhibit hall as already sold-out! The conference planners are working to see about adding more space to the exhibit hall to accommodate the growing waiting list of exhibitors.

The APEC 2024 Conference committee has been working diligently to prepare for the event that will be held a month earlier next year than has been the case for over a decade.  While it's just a bit too early to report on the specifics, I can report that Professional Education Session, Technical Session and Industry Session programs are coming together and will provide attendees with a full slate of career-enhancing information and insights. Registration will open in mid-September and the fee for full conference registration (still one of lowest of all IEEE conferences) includes free access to the Sunday and Monday Professional Education Seminars as well as a free ticket to the Wednesday evening Social Event.

Remember, you need to register to get access to the discounted hotel reservations. These special hotel blocks will sell out well before February.

As always, APEC includes a lively Exhibition that begins on Monday evening with a hosted reception on the trade show floor. The exhibits are also open on Tuesday and Wednesday and offer a hosted lunch service to attendees.

If you haven't already made plans to attend, don't wait any longer. Be sure you have it in your 2024 budget to attend this exceptional event – truly The Premier Event in Applied Power Electronics™

I hope to see you in Long Beach, February 25-29, 2024.

Provided by Greg Evans, APEC 2024 Publicity Co-Chair

The 2024 PSMA Annual Meeting will be held in conjunction with APEC 2024 at the Hyatt Long Beach, adjacent to the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, CA on Monday, February 26. A buffet breakfast at 7:30 a.m. will precede the meeting and individuals from member companies as well non-member guests are invited to attend and participate in a full agenda of topics of interest to the industry. At the meeting, you will have the opportunity to meet and interact with other PSMA members as well as with many of the students who received APEC Attendance Support to present their papers at the Technical Sessions this year. Regular member company representatives will participate in the election of four Directors to serve on the PSMA Board for a three-year term beginning immediately and ending at APEC 2027.

The detailed agenda for the meeting is available on the PSMA web site and includes reports from each of the technical committees and stimulating discussions on new PSMA initiatives for 2024 and beyond. The APEC 2024 Conference Chair will review the progress on APEC 2024 and there will be a report on plans for APEC 2025 in Atlanta, GA. .

Members and guests are also welcome to remain for the Board of Directors meeting that will immediately follow the Annual Meeting. Participation in these meetings will provide you with the opportunity to network with colleagues from other companies and to influence the direction of the PSMA and the power sources industry.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the active PSMA Technical Committees will hold open meetings during the week of APEC 2024. All are invited to participate or to just drop in any of these committee meetings to hear and provide input as the committee activities are being planned for the coming year. Visit the PSMA website to see the schedule of PSMA meetings and events at APEC 2024.

On February 24, the Saturday prior to the start of APEC 2024, PSMA and PELS will be sponsoring the ninth annual High Frequency Magnetics Workshop -"Power Magnetics @ High Frequency." 

Be sure to visit us at the PSMA booth in the APEC hub, at the exhibition area during APEC. PSMA is again sponsoring the popular PSMA/ APEC Passport Program in the Exhibit Hall. Visit the booths of participating PSMA members to enter a raffle drawing for some great prizes. New this year, the Passport will be part of the APEC app!

We look forward to a good turnout at the PSMA meetings and a very busy and exciting week.

For the latest information on all of the activities planned during APEC 2024, visit us at www.psma.com.

The Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) Marketing Committee is organizing an Industry Session at APEC 2023 addressing the industry trends within fast growing market sectors impacting the power electronics industry. The session is targeted primarily towards professionals in marketing, sales, and business development. However, power electronics design and application engineers, professors and students will also benefit from learning about the context for their designs and how to prepare for the future.

The session will take place on Wednesday afternoon, March 22^nd, 2023, from 1:30 - 4:45 p.m. in Room W202BC at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.

The Industry Trends Driving Power Electronics Industry Session (IS15) will feature seven presentations by industry leaders focusing on dynamic and rapidly growing market sectors. Presentations and presenters in this session include:

• A Peek into Global Energy Revolution Policies Across Sectors; Michael Willis, The Color Nine Group
• How Wireless Charging Facilitates the Journey Towards Autonomous Driving; Milisav Danilovic, WiTricity
• Energy Storage Market and Manufacturing: Challenges and Opportunities: Anton Fischer, Celestica
• Wireless Power Gains Adoption Across Low and Ultra-High-Powered Applications; Dinesh Kithany, Wired & Wireless Technologies (WAWT)
• Roadmap for Smart Manufacturing in Electronics Manufacturing; Francis Mullany, International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI)
• Power at the Heart of Medical Innovations; Hafiz Khalid, XP Power
• Bend the curve! Efficiency as a Driver for a Green Future; Alexander Gerfer, Würth Elektronik eiSos GmbH & Co. KG

Ada Cheng and Dinesh Kithany, Co-Chairs of the Industry Trends Industry Session, commented “We are excited that the PSMA Marketing Committee is again organizing this year’s Industry Trends Driving Power Electronics Industry Session. This cohesive session features knowledgeable and respected representatives from industry who will focus on issues that impact the future growth of key industry market segments.” Ada and Dinesh encourage everyone to register for APEC and attend this valuable industry session and to consider participating in the other PSMA-sponsored Industry Sessions during the week.

PSMA Marketing Committee Meeting Notice

All APEC attendees are invited to participate in the PSMA Marketing Committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday March 22 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in room Salon 132 at the Rosen Centre, Orlando, FL to plan the program for the coming year.  Participants are also encouraged to participate in the other PSMA meetings being held throughout the week.

The PSMA Energy Storage Committee is sponsoring an Industry Session, “Energy Storage Systems and Their Relevant Aspects,” at APEC2023. This provocative and broad Industry Session covers a range of energy storage systems from large systems that store and return energy to the grid, to those that supply energy to a micro-grid such as an office park or residences, to self-contained systems such as portable devices or remote sensors for the Internet of Things.  There will be specific emphasis on their control and whole cycle efficiency.

The session (IS24) will take place on Thursday morning, March 23^rd, 2023, from 8:30 – 11:20 a.m. in the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida..

The six presentations in this session are:

• Fitness for Purpose – Choosing the Right Storage Device for IoT Applications; Michael Hayes, Tyndall National Institute
• V2G Storage with School Bus Fleets; Aaron Nutt, Dynapower
• Grid Tied Storage; Babu Chalamala, Sandia National Laboratories
• Super Capacitor Applications; Nihal Kularatna, The University of Waikato
• High Power and Dynamic Wireless Charging of Electric Vehicles; Veda Prakash Galigekere, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Panel Discussion on Energy Storage Technologies; Victor Boyadzhyan, Arseco Laboratories

Victor Boyadzhyan, Energy Storage Industry Session Co-Chair, commented “These presentations focus on topics of interest to the power electronics community. For this audience, the products of interest include many kinds of energy storage, as well as their control and their protection, including cybersecurity.” Session Co-Chair Eric Swenson continued “The invited experts presenting will provide attendees with information for real world situations, such as a small to medium sized power converter manufacturer with limited resources faced with the challenge of incorporating energy storage into their systems. What issues must they confront, and what problems must they solve?”

Victor and Eric encourage everyone to register for APEC and attend this valuable industry session and to consider participating in the other PSMA-sponsored Industry Sessions during the week.

PSMA Energy Storage Committee Meeting Notice

Interested individuals are also invited to participate in the PSMA Energy Storage Committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday March 22 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in room Salon 14 at the Rosen Centre, Orlando, FL to plan the program for the coming year. Participants are also encouraged to participate in the other  PSMA meetings being held throughout the week.

The PSMA Reliability Committee is sponsoring an Industry Session at APEC 2023 on Wednesday March 22^nd, at 8:30 a.m. in the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Featuring speakers from leading industry and research organizations, the session (IS12) will explore different approaches to address reliability objectives in industries including Automotive, Marine, Military, and manufacturing systems.

The session will feature seven presentations:

• Case for Standardized Mission Profiles for Automotive; Peter Turlo, onsemi
• The Safety-related Challenges of Using Lithium-ion Batteries; Michael Pecht, University of Maryland – CALCE Lab
• 900V GaN – Designing for Reliability; Likun Shen & Ron Barr, Transphorm
• A Hierarchy of Failure Modes Affecting the Reliability of Embedded Software in Marine Power Conversion Applications; Benjamin Morris, L3Harris
• Intelligent Design of Fanless Power Supplies for Optimizing Thermal Management; Christoph Butzhammer, RECOM Power
• Impacts and Methods for Design Reliability in Military Power System Applications; Joaquin Gabriels & Brian Hacker, L3Harris
• Electrolytic Capacitors – How to Make Sure to Achieve Desired Reliability and Application Life Performance; Stephan Menzel, CapXon

Crystal Yannarella, Reliability Industry Session Co-chair, commented “Meeting reliability objectives in a diverse range of applications in the power electronics industry is an art with no universal solution. By including specific examples and reviewing the unique challenges and how the objectives are realized, this session will provide ideas on design approaches to find cost-effective solutions.” Brian Zahnstecher, Industry Session Co-chair, continued “This session is geared towards anyone who is curious and wanting to learn more about not only how to improve industry reliability, but also how to mitigate product disaster to ensure product quality for the long term.” They encourage everyone to register for APEC and attend this valuable industry session and to consider participating in the other PSMA-sponsored Industry Sessions during the week.

PSMA Reliability Committee Invitation

All APEC attendees are invited to participate in the PSMA Reliability Committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday March 21 from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. in room Salon 14 at the Rosen Centre, Orlando, FL to plan the program for the coming year. Participants are also encouraged to participate in the other PSMA meetings being held throughout the week.

The Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC2023), to be held in Orlando, Florida, March 19-23, 2023, will feature three Industry Sessions organized by the PSMA Semiconductor Committee. These sessions will include a combined total of 21 presentations from leading experts in the field representing 17 companies and academic institutions.

The series of Industry Sessions will address topics of both interest and concern as designers address the decision to apply GaN and SiC technologies, with each session focusing on one aspect of the topic. The three sessions are as follows:

• IS03: Modern Power Semiconductor Technology Ambitions & Applications
  Session Chairs: Sandeep Bahl, Texas Instruments, and Renee Yawger, Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC)
  Time: Tuesday March 21, 8:30 - 11:55 AM
• IS08:  Integrated WBG Semiconductors - Enhancing Power Density and Reducing Part Count
  Session Chairs: Ajay Hari, onsemi, and Llew Vaughan-Edmunds, Navitas Semiconductor
  Time: Wednesday March 22, 8:30 - 11:55 AM
• IS17: New Challenges and Solutions in Test and Characterization of WBG Power Devices
  Session Chairs: Jaume Roig, onsemi, and Stephanie Watts Butler, WattsButler LLC
  Time: Thursday March 24, 1:45 – 3:25 PM

“The power electronics universe is expanding exponentially through the amalgamation of yesterday with today and tomorrow,” commented Reenu Garg, Co-Chair of the PSMA Semiconductor Committee. Jaume Roig, Committee Co-Chair continued, “Our seasoned speakers are unleashing tomorrow’s technology for power semiconductor devices. Take a seat and be inspired.” Tim McDonald, Committee Co-Chair, expressed his admiration and gratitude to the PSMA Semiconductor Committee members for their time, effort and expertise to organize three outstanding industry sessions.

Reenu, Jaume and Tim encourage everyone to register for APEC and attend these valuable industry sessions and to consider participating in the other PSMA-sponsored Industry Sessions during the week.

PSMA Semiconductor Committee Meeting Notice

All APEC attendees are invited to participate in the PSMA Semiconductor Committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday, March 21 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in room Salon 13 at the Rosen Centre, Orlando, FL, to plan the program for the coming year.  Participants are also encouraged to participate in the other PSMA-sponsored meetings being held throughout the week.

The PSMA Packaging & Manufacturing Committee is sponsoring an Industry Session at APEC 2023 titled, “Latest 3D-Packaging Technology for Power Electronics.” Featuring speakers from leading industry and research organizations, the session (IS10) will focus on new packaging technologies that can be used to achieve advanced performance in high density power solutions.

The session will take place on Wednesday morning, March 22nd, 2023, from 8:30 - 11:55 a.m. at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.

The session includes seven presentations:

• Manufacturing Challenges and Qualification of 3D Packaging; Charles Woychik, Skywater Technology Foundry
• Sintering Innovations for Power Electronics Packaging & Assembly; Gyan Dutt, MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions
• Voice of the Customer presentation on Form Factor by IBM; Eric Swenson, IBM
• Aluminium liquid cooled heatsink and Friction Stir Welding (FSW): a high efficiency and low-cost solution for EV thermal management; Laurent Dubourg, Stirweld
• Power Module Packaging Using Direct Write Technology; Mark Poliks, Binghamton University
• Power Electronics Packaging - Engineering Art and System Perspective; Richard Zhang, Virginia Tech CPES
• Scalable Magnetic Thin Film Multilayering Technology for Power Inductor Integration in Laminates; Pulugurtha Raj, Florida International University

John Bultitude, Session Co-Chair, commented, “Interconnect technologies and new materials are important to achieve advanced electrical performance and thermal management. The 2023 session will provide insight into innovative manufacturing processes to assemble these new technologies with a diverse range of presentations describing advanced power packaging through a broad range of power levels.”  Session Co-Chair, Brian Narveson, continued, “This session will provide valuable insights to system and design engineers, program managers and researchers working on projects where decreased size and improved efficiency are required.”John and Brian encourage everyone to register for APEC and attend this valuable industry session and to consider attending the other PSMA-sponsored Industry Sessions during the week.

PSMA Packaging & Manufacturing Committee Meeting Notice

Since APEC 2016 was being held in virtually our back yard, Cherokee International founder and president Ganpat Patel and I drove to Long Beach to attend the 30th annual Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC).

This year's event was held inside the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center (located adjacent to the Hyatt Regency Hotel). Having served as the APEC Publicity Chairman (1991-96 & 1998-2004) I wanted to meet some former committee colleagues and to see what new products are being developed and introduced. APEC, sponsored by the IEEE PELS and IEEE IAS Societies and the Power Sources Manufacturers Association, PSMA, is "recognized by many as the leading conference for practicing electronics professionals."

In addition to 21 3-1/2 half hour educational Seminars that commenced on Sunday, APEC 2016 offered over 500 technical papers in 45 different Sessions which started on Monday afternoon and concluded on Thursday March 24. 

APEC is truly an International Conference. 1212 Technical Session abstracts, received from 45 different nations, were peer reviewed last fall. Abstracts from 30 of these countries were selected for inclusion in this year’s record setting event. Case in point, engineers traveled from as far away as Australia and New Zealand to share their latest design concepts. Speakers from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan represented Asia. Representing South and Central America, speakers travel from Brazil and Columbia. From the Middle East there were presentations from Egypt, Israel, and Qatar. Representing Europe were speakers from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, German, India, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and the Ukraine. Let me not overlook the speakers from Canada, Ireland and the U.K.

Complementing the technical presentations, the APEC exhibit hall contained 370 booths with a wide array of products. “Feed them and they will come” always works. APEC set up multiple serving stations with great entrees and beverages as well as ice cream stations for the 5,100 plus attendees to keep them from leaving the exhibit hall at the Convention Center.

And what was happening with the PSMA you might ask? A lot. There were 24 two to three hour technical committee meetings scheduled, ranging from a workshop on High Frequency Magnetics that started at 7:30 on Saturday morning to a three-hour session addressing Safety and Compliance issues and another three-hour session on Semiconductors advances that were held on Thursday. I would be remiss not to point out that the very popular Power Technology Roadmap Committee met for two hours on Tuesday. We did look into the Packaging Technical Committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday evening attendees could select from three desirable Rap sessions including: Future of Semiconductor Technology Development, Power Electronics for Internet of Things: Will it Happen and Advanced Refueling Technologies for EVs.

In quizzing some of the attendees we were told that the new hot item is Gallium Nitride semiconductors. Another area to be aware of is IoT. "Internet of things" where you will be told when you are running low on milk, your coffee is ready and other smart power alerts. "The Internet of Things” is the network of physical objects—devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data."

Larry Gilbert, Mohan Mankikar, and Pat Patel

Where is everyone from my past? We did find representatives from firms dating back to the 70s and 80s. Many of the others have merged, sold outright or folded in a very competitive environment.

Provided by Larry Gilbert,  former APEC Publicity Chair  (1991-96 & 1998-2004)