Hyatt Regency Orlando, Photo by Leonard J. DeFrancisci

he 2022 PSMA Planning Meeting was held on Saturday October 15, 2022, at the Hyatt Regency Orlando in Orlando, FL with 28 attendees, including 5 who attended remotely. The purpose of the Planning Meeting was to review where the Association is today, discuss outstanding issues and to identify possible new programs and projects that promise to bring value to the membership.

President Trifon Liakopoulos, who was in Orlando, welcomed all the attendees and reviewed the agenda for the meeting. Chair Fred Weber, who attended virtually, introduced the Executive Committee for 2022 – 2024 and briefly reviewed the mission and current status of the Association. Fred highlighted some of the successes over the past year including the return to an in-person APEC conference, leveraging new revenue sources, and strengthening PSMA's partnerships with other key industry organizations. He then presented areas for future focus which include increasing membership through multiple channels, encouraging more technical committee collaboration, continued collaborations between the PSMA and iNEMI roadmap efforts, and identifying future special projects that will bring value to our members and the industry.

Following Fred's remarks there were presentations from each of the other Executive Committee members.

Financial Forecast
Tim McDonald, Secretary/Treasurer, presented the latest 6-Quarter financial forecast. Tim indicated that in 2021 the forecast was extended to 10-Quarters due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, but this report returned to a 6-Quarter format as circumstances continue to stabilize. The 6-Quarter forecast projects growth in underwriting revenue in support of the Roadmap, increased dues income from the 2023 rate increase, APEC income recovering, together with continued sponsorship of workshops and conferences.

In summary, the forecast indicates the Association to be on solid financial footing over the 6-Quarter period and poised for growth. Assuming no unforeseen developments, there should be modest funding available to support Special Projects that promise to bring value to the membership and the industry.

KPIs-Metrics that Matter
Renee Yawger, Vice President, reviewed the KPIs – Key Performance Indicators - currently being tracked. KPIs are metrics that matter which provide information on the relative success of current activities, identify opportunities to improve the activities of the Technical Committees, improve the effectiveness of the website, workshops, special projects, and webinars, and hopefully will enhance efforts to attract new membership.  Current KPI areas include Membership - Growth, Retention and Market Share; Special Projects and Events, and Website – Traffic and Behavior.

Tracking KPIs is a new initiative for PSMA, and Renee emphasized that for this effort to provide actionable analytics to help guide us going forward, it will take time and multiple iterations to calibrate target KPIs. She recommended that committees be responsible for setting KPIs that are appropriate to their membership and objectives.

President's Themes
Trifon Liakopoulos reviewed the Executive Committee Vision for 2020 – 2025, including the 4 pillars for sustenance and smart growth – Keep the good stuff; Define and integrate metrics to monitor the parameters that matter; Become more applications and problems oriented; Strategic collaborations; and engage more with stakeholders.

APEC Industry Session Update
Dhaval Dalal, APEC Industry Session Co-Chair, introduced the new APEC Industry Session Co-Chairs, Deepak Veereddy and Laszlo Balogh. He then provided an update on the status of 2023 APEC Industry Sessions.  This year saw a large increase in overall Industry Session submissions, both for individual submissions and full session proposals. Based on this growth, the committee have expanded to 6 parallel tracks. Even with the expanded number of tracks, difficult decisions had to be made due to the overall high quality of submissions received. Dhaval then provided the Industry Session schedule and reviewed the timeline for upcoming deadlines.

Committee Updates
There was a report from each of the PSMA Technical Committees that summarized their accomplishments over the past year and focused on ongoing programs and projects for 2023. Ten of the technical committees have submitted proposals to organize full Industry Sessions at APEC 2023 and all technical committees will be supporting the Power Technology Roadmap effort.

In addition:

• Transportation Committee Co-chair Fred Weber provided a review of the Vehicle Electrification Workshop held virtually in September and lessons learned. The workshop was recorded, and the committee plans to offer access to the presentations and recordings.
• Semiconductor Committee Co-Chair Tim McDonald reported that the committee meets monthly with active participation from member companies. The committee plans to sponsor 3 Industry Sessions at APEC 2023: "Integrated WBG Semiconductors: Enhancing Power Density & Reducing Part Count," New Challenges and Solutions in Test and Characterization of WBG Power Devices," and "Modern Power Semiconductor Technology Ambitions & Applications."
• Brian Zahnstecher and Crystal Yannarella, Reliability Committee APEC Industry Session Co-chairs, reported on the Industry Session the committee is organizing for APEC 2023, "Meeting Reliability Objectives for each application is an art with no universal solution." The committee is currently looking for Co-Chairs since Brian Zahnstecher stepped down as Chair earlier in 2022.
• Dhaval Dalal, Power Technology Roadmap Committee Co-chair, reported that the committee published the 2022 Power Technology Roadmap Report earlier this year and thanked everyone who contributed to the report. He reviewed some of the lessons learned from the 2022 PTR and the future outlook. The committee is considering organizing a focus group during APEC 2023. The 2022 PTR webinars have recently resumed, and they are looking for additional webinar topics and presenters from the other PSMA Technical Committees.
• The Packaging & Manufacturing Committee Co-chairs John Bultitude, Brian Narveson, and Ernie Parker submitted a report that was presented by John Horzepa. There are 10-15 participants typically attending the monthly committee meetings, as well as committee members serving on the Steering or Technical Committees for the workshops the committee supports including 3D-PEIM, IWIPP and PwrSoC. The committee is interested in a special project Technology Report on "Integrated and Embedded Magnetics for Power Sources." They will submit a special project proposal when resources allow.
• Marketing Committee Co-Chair Chris Whaling provided a summary of the committee activities over the past year. He reported that the committee is currently actively working on strategies to increase PSMA membership and engagement. A 6-month Social Media Special Project was recently approved to support this effort and the mission of PSMA. The committee will be tracking KPIs and is planning several initiatives to support this project.
• Magnetics Committee Co-Chair George Slama reported the committee is organizing the 8th High Frequency Magnetics Workshop the day prior to APEC 2023. The committee is interested in expanding their activities beyond the workshops and Industry Sessions, including updating the website forum and increasing engagement with others, including inviting presenters from academia and industry to monthly meetings, engaging with TTA, and collaborating with other PSMA committees.
• John Horzepa presented the Industry-Education Committee report prepared with Gerry Moschopoulos, Committee Chair. The committee has been quite active in 2022. They continue to support the APEC Student Attendance Support program, which, together with PELS and IAS, provided up to a total of $40,000 for expenses for student presenters to attend APEC 2022 and will continue the program for APEC 2023. The committee collaborated with IEEE PELS on the 2021-2022 Young Professionals Seminar Series, and participated in the Young Professionals and Women in Engineering events at APEC 2022 and ECCE 2022.
• Energy Storage Committee Co-chair Victor Boyadzhan reported that the committee includes representatives from academia and industry and continues to cooperate with the Capacitor, Energy Management and other technical committees since energy storage is recognized as a critical technological focus for the overall power sources industry.
• Energy Management Committee Chair David Chen reviewed the activities of the committee. The committee will be sponsoring a webinar series on Appliance Energy Efficiency Regulations starting in October 2022. The committee recently submitted a comment letter to the DoE on EPS Conservation Standards.  They also continue to support the Energy Efficiency Data Base which tracks a growing list of countries and agencies involved with energy efficiency regulations.
• Brian Zahnstecher, Energy Harvesting Committee Co-chair, reported that the committee meets monthly with an average of 12 attendees on each call, including new guest(s) most months. Brian shared some of the highlights from EnerHarv 2022 Workshop recently held in Raleigh, NC. Committee Members are active participants in collaborations with other committees, including contributing speakers for Industry Sessions, providing a Keynote on Low Power Telemetry at 3D-PEIM-2023, as well as outside groups including the EU Project. Mike Hayes, Committee co-chair, expressed his disappointment about the Thursday slot the committee has been assigned for an Industry Session at APEC 2023.
• Andrew Mikulski, Capacitor Committee Co-chair, reported that the Committee has 3 new co-chairs, sharing the committee responsibilities. He leads the organizing of the annual APEC Industry Session, Frank Puhane is responsible for the annual pre-APEC workshop, and Stephan Menzel is responsible for webinars. The committee meets monthly, with 10-12 people typical on each call, although recent meetings have not been well attended. The committee is planning their 6th pre-APEC workshop in 2023. They also plan to restart the Capacitor Fundamentals webinar series with all new material.

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). The Executive Committee will summarize these ideas and the proposed initiatives for 2023.

PTR Cycle Length Proposal
Dhaval Dalal, Power Technology Roadmap Committee Co-Chair, presented the committee's proposal to move to a 3-year cycle. He provided an overview of the history and evolution of the PSMA Power Technology Roadmap which began in 1994 and was published on a 3-year cycle until 2009, moved to a 2-year cycle from 2009 – 2019, and then was postponed from 2021 to 2022 due to the Pandemic effect. Dhaval outlined some of the key benefits of returning to a 3-year cycle, including increased webinar contact and a greater ability to truly capture emerging trends, as well as reducing the burden on volunteers and allowing for a better survey effort. He also addressed some of the concerns that may arise from this change including the perception of reduced value to members and potential for missing major technology transitions.

During the discussion on this topic, there was overall agreement on the proposal to move to a 3-year cycle and several ideas were proposed to address potential concerns and to provide content to PSMA members during the off years.
 
PSMA members can view the minutes of the Planning Meeting on the "Members Only" section of the PSMA web site.

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