Long Beach Convention Center

PEC 2016 promises to be the largest APEC event ever. The site of APEC 2016 will be the popular Long Beach Convention Center. Attendance at APEC 2016 is projected to exceed 4,500 – about a ten percent increase from APEC 2015.

The technical program has been expanded to nine concurrent lecture tracks (up from seven in 2015). A record-breaking 1,211 paper digests were submitted. Of these, about fifty percent were selected for the program (351 lectures and 261 poster sessions). In addition to the traditional tracks (ac-dc, dc-dc converters, motor drives, etc.), there has been a significant increase in coverage of emerging topics including transportation electronics, renewable energy systems, micro-grid and others. The number of Industry Sessions has also increased going from three tracks to four with over 80 presentations.

The Plenary Session is shaping up to be a truly can’t miss event. Presentations from Google and Tesla are among the companies in the preliminary line-up. I’ll have more to say about this in the next edition of this newsletter.

The Exposition was expanded again this year and, once again, is totally sold out. There are 262 exhibiting companies, occupying almost 400 booth spaces with a waiting list of twenty companies.

A very popular event at APEC is the Rap Sessions. These take place after the exhibits close on Tuesday evening. The Rap Sessions are open to all and everyone is invited to grab a beverage and join in the lively discussion of provocative topics including: “The Future of Semiconductor Development;” “Power Electronics for IoT – Will it Happen?” and “Advanced Refueling Technologies for EVs.”

The PSMA Magnetics Committee together with IEEE PELS will hold an inaugural “Power Magnetics @ High Frequency – Solving the Black Magic!” all day workshop on Saturday March 19, 2016, at the same venue as APEC2016. More information on this workshop is in this UPDATE.

Finally, plans are coming together for the Wednesday evening social event which will be held in the Pacific Arena (connected to the Convention Center). I’ll have more information in the next report.

Once again this year, there will be a mobile app to aid in navigating the range of presentations and other activities.

Keep in mind that membership in PSMA qualifies anyone in your organization to discounts on APEC registration fees. If you haven’t already made plans to attend, don’t wait any longer. Plan to come to sunny and warm Long Beach in March and be part of this exceptional event – truly The Premier Event in Applied Power Electronics™.

Provided by Greg Evans, APEC 2016 Publicity Chair

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