Outgoing Chair Stephen Oliver

Incoming Chair Mike Hayes

he PSMA Annual Meeting, originally scheduled to be held in New Orleans, was changed to a virtual meeting due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the cancellation of the in-person APEC. Almost 60 PSMA members and guests attended the meeting.

Outgoing Chair Stephen Oliver opened the meeting at 10 a.m. CDT. He welcomed all attendees and introduced Mike Hayes who was elected Chair by the Board of Directors at the February Board meeting.

Mike Hayes introduced the Executive Team that will serve 2020 -2022:

Next on the agenda was the election of four people to the Board of Directors. Each candidate introduced themselves and provided a brief summary of their background and reasons for wanting to serve on the board. The following candidates were elected to the Board of Directors for the three-year term (2020-2023):

Mike Hayes congratulated the four Directors, all elected to serve their second terms.

Mike then presented awards to Tony O'Brien and Brian Zahnstecher, Co-Chairs of the Reliability Committee, for their leadership of PSMA's newest committee, formed in 2017, and publication of the 2019 PSMA Power Supply Software/Firmware Reliability Improvement Project and Report.

Tony O’Brien, Reliability Committee Co-Chair

Brian Zahnstecher, Reliability Committee Co-Chair

Jose Cobos, General Chair for APEC 2020, reviewed the background and decision by the committee with the three sponsors to cancel the in-person APEC2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. He also briefly identified some of the major and outstanding issues with the convention center, the many vendors, exhibitors and individual registrants that were being addressed.

The Steering Committee is considering the possibility of organizing a Virtual APEC program that would include presentations of the Plenary Session, accepted Technical Papers, planned Seminars and selected Industry Sessions, but the details have not yet been worked out.

APEC2021 is scheduled March 21-25 in the Phoenix Convention Center but detailed planning has been delayed as the Organizing Committee addresses the outstanding issues with APEC2020.

Mike Hayes, Chair, discussed the mission of the Association, the current status of the membership, the immediate concerns in scheduling and being able to hold a number of workshops scheduled for 2020 and other challenges facing the Association.

Mike briefly reviewed and discussed his vision and objectives for the next two years including:

• Keeping and Nurturing the Good Stuff,
• Becoming more Applications and Problems oriented,
• Define and integrate metrics to monitor the parameters that matter,
• Engage more with stakeholders,
• Sustenance and Smart Growth.

Mike then presented an overview of the background and objectives of the PSMA Tiger Teams, small ad hoc groups formed to resolve short and very targeted initiatives that can be addressed quickly. He reviewed a list of completed and ongoing projects recently addressed. Among completed projects include a comprehensive Privacy Policy, a Workshop Support Policy, the new PSMA logo and consolidation of Active Technical Committees. Ongoing Tiger Team projects include an updated website and improving the Public Image.

Secretary/ Treasurer Tim McDonald presented the Financial Report including PSMA's current financial status and a six-quarter financial forecast. Tim highlighted that the forecast is based on the best-known data at this point in time but that there are a lot of additional uncertainties in the post COVID-19 world.

Each of the PSMA Committees provided updates on the recent activities. All of the committees support the 2021 Power Technology Roadmap, and most are planning to provide at least one webinar to the roadmap webinar series. The committees all had face-to-face meetings planned during APEC and will be rescheduling these meetings by webconference in the coming weeks.

• Fred Weber, Capacitor Committee Co-Chair, reported that the committee is planning an educational webinar on the process of choosing a capacitor, using datasheets and comparing benefits vs. drawbacks. This will be the fourth webinar in the Capacitor Basics series. The first 3 webinars are available on the Educational Resources section of the Capacitor Committee Forum on the PSMA website. The committee organized its Third Annual Workshop and plans to offer the Workshop in virtual form in the coming weeks.
• Mike Hayes and Brian Zahnstecher, Energy Harvesting Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the committee membership is approaching 50 members with 10 to 15 attendees at their meetings each month. Some of the initiatives they are considering for 2020 include generating a white paper and supporting a student design contest. The EnerHarv 2020 Workshop scheduled for NSCU Assist Center in Raleigh in mid-June has been canceled due to COVID19 and will be rescheduled.
• David Chen and Ed Herbert, Energy Management Committee Co-Chairs, reported the committee is considering a number of topics for educational and Roadmap webinars including an update on rules and requirements for energy labelling and ecodesign in EU, strategies to meet or beat regulatory requirements, life-cycle analysis, modeling carbon savings as related to the grid and energy storage technologies. The committee continues to support the efforts to update the Energy Efficiency Database. Arnold Alderman provided a brief update on the current status of the EEDB.
• Mike Hayes reviewed the objectives of the Industry-Education Committee which are to promote interaction between power electronics students and industry and to promote power electronics to university and pre-university students. The committee held an in-person meeting in October 2019 in conjunction with the PSMA Planning Meeting and is looking to increase the committee activities and initiatives. Ideas being considered included mentorship opportunities, competitions, videos, and webinars. The committee is also interested in partnering with and championing projects with other PSMA committees and outside organizations. Anyone interested in joining this effort to encourage and support students, the future of the power electronics industry, was encouraged to contact PSMA at power@psma.com.
• Steve Carlsen and Ed Herbert, Magnetics Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the committee has been sponsoring two special projects during the past year. The PSMA-SMA Core Loss Studies - Phase II project report is complete and available to members on the PSMA website. The committee also sponsored 2 webinars in early 2020 on the Basics of Magnetics for Switching Power. Under the leadership of Matt Wilkowski and Ed Herbert, the committee, with technical support from IEEE PELS, organized the 5th Power Magnetics @ High Frequency Workshop and plans to offer the Workshop in virtual form in the coming weeks.
• Frank Cirolia and Greg Evans, Marketing Committee Co-Chairs, provided an overview of the committee and highlighted some of the activities on its current agenda. A new Membership Brochure was created and is now available. They are also looking at the best way to proceed with updating the Handbook of Standardized Terminology. The committee has been involved with many of the recent and current Tiger Team initiatives including the selection of a new PSMA logo and providing feedback for the PSMA web site now in development.
• Power Packaging and Manufacturing Committee Co-Chairs, Brian Narveson and Ernie Parker, reviewed the activities and results of the committee this past year. There are over 20 people on the committee, with a good cross-section of industry and academia. The committee is very active, supporting 3 upcoming workshops 3D-PEIM in Osaka, Japan, IWIPP in Aalborg, Denmark, and PwrSoC in Philadelphia, PA, USA.
• Dhaval Dalal and Conor Quinn, Power Technology Roadmap Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the committee has just begun the planning for the 2021 Power Technology Roadmap and presented a timeline for the activities leading up to the final report. They are looking to fill a couple of vacant segment co-chair positions and soliciting contributions from PSMA committees for the 2020 webinar series.
• Tony O'Brien and Brian Zahnstecher, Reliability Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the committee which was formed in 2017 has monthly meetings and has 29 members. The initial focus of the committee was to sponsor a Special Project. The project has been completed and the PSMA Power Supply Software/Firmware Reliability Improvement Report was distributed to the membership. Work has recently begun on a new special project, the Power Supply Communication Bus Reliability Initiative and they are targeting late 2020 for the publication of the project report. 
• Mike Hayes reported that the Safety & Compliance Committee has become inactive and is looking for new leadership. Anyone interested in helping to reactivate the committee was encouraged to contact the PSMA office at power@psma.com. Arnold Alderman, provided a brief update of the current status of the Safety and Compliance Database on the PSMA website. Former committee co-chairs, Kevin Parmenter and Jim Spangler, have also continued to provide monthly articles on Safety and Compliance issues to How 2 Power.
• Tim McDonald and Tirtha Sarkar, Co-Chairs of the Semiconductor Committee, reported the committee has been very active this past year and organized four Industry Sessions for APEC2020 that included a total of 19 high quality presentations. The committee is considering organizing a number of virtual Industry Sessions to present the material prepared. The committee considered a Special Project during 2019 and continues to look for project sponsoring opportunities. They supported the successful WiPDA 2019 and are involved in the preparations for WiPDA 2020.
• Ralph Taylor and Fred Weber, Transportation Power Electronics Committee Co-Chairs, reported the committee has been very active this past year. One of the committee's main focusses has been how to leverage the information learned from the 2019 special project to address the current awareness of APEC and PSMA within the Automobile Industry and make recommendations to attract companies in that industry to participate in PSMA events.

Invited speaker Marc Benowitz, iNEMI

The invited speaker at this year's Annual Meeting was Marc Benowitz, CEO of iNEMI, the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative, which is a nonprofit R&D consortium of approximately 80 leading electronics manufacturers' suppliers, associations, government agencies and universities. He reviewed the organization, their roadmap, current projects and projects planned for the next few years.

Marc also suggested some possible areas that PSMA and iNEMI might consider collaborating on in the near and longer term. The PSMA Power Technology Report Technical Committee discussed that there has been cooperation with the iNEMI Roadmap team over the past several years and each has made contributions to their respective Roadmaps.

Mike Hayes and Marc Benowitz agreed that the two Associations will work to increase the relationship and identify areas of mutual benefits.

Before adjourning, Chair Mike Hayes asked the attendees for their comments and input on the Annual Meeting as a virtual meeting. The response to the virtual meeting was very positive and the number of PSMA members in attendance was comparable to previous in person meetings. Mike Hayes thanked all presenters and attendees for their participation.

The minutes from the PSMA Annual Meeting have been posted in the Members Only area of the PSMA web site together with the charts from the presentations.

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