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APEC2011 is Shaping Up to be the |
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 s the General Chair for the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), I invite you to join us at APEC 2011, to be held at the Fort Worth Convention Center, March 6-10, 2011. With the support of the PSMA, APEC has grown to be the premier power electronics conference in the world. The conference has an applied/industry focus, including an exposition with over 200 companies, yet also has strong technical and education content with over 300 peer-reviewed technical papers (presented either as lectures or as posters) and two days of professional education seminars. The conference also features special presentations by industry representatives on the latest power electronics technology. Do not forget the MicroMouse competition and the Wednesday-night social event, which will feature FACE, the prominent vocal band.
With all of the advances being made in power electronics and with the demands and challenges on our industry greater than ever, APEC 2011 is a crucial opportunity for us to come together. I hope you will join us in Fort Worth!
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Plan Now To Attend The 2011 PSMA |
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 t's not too early to make your travel plans for APEC 2011. Be sure to arrive in Fort Worth by Sunday evening, March 6 so that you can attend the PSMA Annual Meeting on Monday morning, March 7. The Annual Meeting provides an opportunity for PSMA members to meet face to face and to get an update on the status of the PSMA and plans for the coming year.
Patrick Chapman, APEC General Chair will report on how APEC 2011is shaping up and Frank Cirolia, General Chair for APEC 2012, will give provide a look ahead to the next APEC in Orlando. We have also invited a number of well known guest speakers to provide an update on topics of current interest to PSMA members. Be sure to visit the PSMA website in the coming months for more information about the programs being planned for the Annual Meeting, as well as the schedules of technical committee meetings and other activities of interest to PSMA members taking place during APEC 2011. |
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Report On PSMA 2010 |
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 he 2010 PSMA Planning Meeting was held on September 18 at the Omni Hotel in Fort Worth, TX on Sept.18, 2010 with 14 attendees. The purpose of the planning meeting was to review where the association is today, discuss issues and to identify possible programs and projects that promise to bring value to the membership.
PSMA Chairman Dusty Becker led the meeting and provided an overview of the membership statistics and the changes since the last meeting and the accomplishments since the last planning meeting. He emphasized that the technical committees are the heart of the organization and it is in these committees that the real work of PSMA is done. Michel Grenon, Secretary/Treasurer, prepared a 6-Quarter financial forecast that indicated that the levels of expenses are expected to increase moderately while income from membership dues will have modest growth and the APEC surpluses will continue at recent levels. He forecast the Association will remain in good financial position which will allow funding to support Special Projects that promise to bring value to the membership.
There was a report from each of the technical committees which summarized their accomplishments in the past year and ongoing programs and projects. Four of the technical committees have submitted proposals for Special Presentation sessions at APEC 2011.
Carl Blake and Aung Tu Thet, Co-chairs of the Technology Roadmap Committee, reported the committee has been very active this past year and listed the 15 roadmap presentations that have already been made with a 16th presentation scheduled by the Capacitor Committee in October. All of the presentations have been via teleconference (audio and web) and recorded. The presentations will be available shortly for review by the committee on the PSMA web site. The Power Technology Roadmap Report will be available to the membership prior to APEC 2011. A Plenary Presentation that will summarize and highlight some of the results from the Roadmap will be made at APEC 2011. Dusty Becker reviewed the results of a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis conducted at a special meeting of the Executive Committee held earlier this year. He suggested that the results of that exercise be the main inputs in developing suggested initiatives for the coming year.
In discussing some of the areas of concern to the association, Dusty Becker highlighted the need to invest in projects that will bring value to our members, the need to develop more and deeper involvement within member companies and a commitment to bring more industry content to APEC. The group participated in a brainstorming session to list possible projects and activities to address these issues. The group did not prioritize the items and identify those that should be included as recommended projects and goals for coming year. The prioritization will be done by the Executive Committee and discussed at the October and November Board meetings. In addition, the Marketing Committee was asked to prepare a questionnaire to survey the membership and solicit their inputs on projects that would benefit their company and the industry.
PSMA members will soon be able to view the minutes of the Planning Meeting with the listing of suggested initiatives on the "Members Only" section of the PSMA web site. Although a lot was accomplished during the busy weekend, it was not all work. Most of the participants took part in the APEC Technical Program on Sunday and enjoyed an excellent dinner that evening. The APEC Program Committee met the next day and based on the results of their work we can all look forward to a very interesting and a successful APEC 2011.
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 embers of the PSMA Board of Directors are elected at the Annual Meeting held every year during the APEC conference. Each Director serves a three year term and is eligible to be reelected for one additional term.
We would like you to meet Frank Cirolia, who is serving his second consecutive term as a member of the PSMA Board of Directors.  Frank Cirolia has 28 years of experience in the power supply industry. Frank has progressed through the ranks since receiving an ASEE in 1982 and a BSEE in 1987. He advanced from an Engineering Technician to Design Engineer and Project Engineer, promoted to Chief Engineer then to Engineering Manager. Frank is currently working at Emerson as a Systems and Applications Engineer, supporting key telecom companies throughout North America Frank's technical expertise includes the design, layout, packaging and production of single and multiple output converters utilizing various topologies, with power ranging from 10 to 3000 watts. He had Military and Aerospace experience with Lockheed; high volume - PC power supply experience with Wang Labs; and commercial OEM/ Telco experience with companies such as Unipower, ABB, Ascom, Delta, Artesyn and Emerson. Frank's Industry Involvement and Achievements include:
Provided by Frank Cirolia |
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 About Our Members |
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  icor Corporation designs, manufactures and markets modular power components, configurable power systems, accessory products and custom power solutions used in a broad range of applications by customers -- from high-volume, global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to low-volume specialty manufacturers -- across major electronics markets.From the introduction of the first 'Brick' power modules in the 80's, Vicor has continued to invest in the R&D necessary to develop and manufacture innovative power components and systems. Today, the Vicor vision encompasses a far-reaching power component methodology: meeting the requirements for power systems operating from ac- or dc- input voltages more predictably and cost-effectively with modular components that support efficient power distribution and dense power conversion with the requisite flexibility and scalability. Vicor's three business units are focused on achieving this vision: The Brick business unit, using a mass customization model, offers tens of thousands of standard, configurable and custom high-performance power conversion components and the new V·I Chip™ inside VI BRICK power components. If pre-defined modules do not meet their requirements, customers can design their own custom product(s) via the web-based PowerBench™ Design System. PowerBench employs unique patented technology to provide design specifications, part numbers, price and delivery online. Vicor Integration Architects, with offices throughout the United States, design and manufacture turnkey custom power systems to fit very specific customer needs/requirements. The V·I Chip business unit offers high-performance, high-density BCM™ bus converters, PRM™ regulators, and VTM™ current multipliers which enable Factorized Power Architecture™ (FPA™) systems and facilitate high-value-add power system design in Intermediate Bus Architecture and other Distributed Power architectures. Targeted to next generation system designs in server / datacenters, ATE, telecom, solid state lighting, and defense electronics, V·I Chip modules enable end applications that achieve higher performance and energy efficiency while providing greater system flexibility and faster time to market. The Picor business unit is a fabless designer, developer, and marketer of active filter, power management and high-density, low power conversion products. Picor relies on detailed knowledge of end-use power system requirements to develop innovative power solutions with superior performance, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Additionally, Picor develops proprietary, high-performance semiconductor circuitry which is a contributing factor to the differentiation and power conversion innovations of the V·I Chip and Brick power components. For more information please visit http://www.vicr.com. Provided by Iris Kimber Editors Note: We would like to feature your company in a future issue of the Update. Please contact the Association Office for information about how to submit an article for consideration. |
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Welcome to PSMA |
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Altair Advanced Industries, Inc.
Nextek Power
TowerJazz Shye Shapira P.O. Box 619 Migdal Haemek Israel 23105 E-Mail: shye.shapira@towerjazz.com Web Site: www.towerjazz.com
Zarlink Semiconductor Gilbert Amine 4509 Freidrich Lane Bldg.2, Suite 200 Austin, TX 78744 E-Mail: gilbert.amine@zarlink.com Web Site: www.zarlink.com
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New Emerging Markets for |
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 hen the power supply industry first started about sixty five years ago, it was dominated by the companies from the United States. Then that participation was extended to companies in Europe and the Japan. With the advent of high volume applications, mainly desktop and laptop computers, Taiwanese companies such as Delta Electronics and Lite On Technology became dominant participants. Emerson Electric, a US company is still the largest power conversion company in the world.With the emergence of the solar power industry and the ensuing growth of solar inverters this business order is changing. This is mainly due to the initial market development in Germany, a relatively cloudy European country, instead developing in the United States or in sunny Asia. The solar market has developed rapidly in recent years to total estimated revenues of about $5.5 billion in 2010. With Germany taking the lead in the solar market, SMA Solar Technology, a Germany-based company, has emerged as the industry leader. In 2010, SMA Solar is expected to exceed $2 billion in sales, garnering about 40% share of the total market. No other company comes close to SMA Solar, but Power-One (a US-based company) is gaining market share. Its recent growth in solar inverter products cannot be overlooked. Within a few years, Power-One has taken 2nd place in the competitive hierarchy in the solar inverter market with 2010 growth rate of about 649% (a nine month comparison between 2010 and 2009). Its share of the solar inverter products market has crossed 10% Though Power-One is a US-based company, its renewable energy business including inverter design, manufacturing and markets are centered in Europe. From an inverter business perspective Power-One can be viewed as a European company. Many other major companies, such as Kaco new Energy and Fronius are also European - German and Austrian, respectively. So unlike the traditional power supply industry where markets and participants are dominated by the US, Taiwan and Japan, the market for solar inverter products is dominated by the Europeans, mainly because Europe has emerged as the leading market for renewable energy. But that may be about to change with two major geographic regions which are poised to enter this renewable energy market segment aggressively. These two major regions are North America and China. Each is huge and important, and each may become larger than the market in Europe. Also other geographic regions in the rest of the world are not far behind in this market development. As a result, many new opportunities are expected to emerge to serve this new market. Will these new market opportunities bring new participants to the market, as global and local/regional companies enter this market? SMA Solar is a truly global company with fifteen subsidiaries in all major regions, including the US and China. It recently opened a new subsidiary in India as it is considered by many as the next big emerging market. To take advantage of the emerging market in North America, Power-One has opened manufacturing facilities in Canada to serve the Canadian market and in Arizona for the US market. Since Power-One is primarily an American company located in California with a solar inverter products market that has grown significantly in 2010, they may have an advantage in serving the US market. Most of the other significant companies, Kaco and Fronius, have also established offices in the US market. The market in China is developing simultaneously and many Taiwan-based companies including Delta Electronics (DelSolar, a subsidiary of Delta Electronics in the solar business) are already participating in this market. The China facility of Power-One is expected to operational by the first quarter of 2011. Many other companies in China are also entering this market, which was not the case in the early development of power electronics. Times have changed. The recently organized Solar Power International Conference in Los Angeles, California provided some insight into the future of this industry. First, the conference was a resounding success with over 1,100 exhibits and more than 27,000 attendees. Though I did not attend the conference, I have talked to several people who did attend and the consensus was that the conference had the energy, enthusiasm and optimism, unlike they had seen in any other power electronics conference. Solar is the future However, one of the important aspects of the conference was the participation of inverter manufacturers. There were more than 75 inverter manufacturers exhibiting with the following representation: US: 40.9%; China: 13.6%; Germany: 10.6%; Taiwan: 10.6% and ROW: 24.3%. This portends the emerging globalized nature of the inverter market and their manufacturers. With the globalization of the solar inverter products business, a new dawn awaits this industry with new opportunities for new participants. Will they rise with the new opportunities, or disappear into the sunset?
The views expressed in this article are solely of Mohan Mankikar. They do not represent the views of PSMA. Mohan Mankikar has been a part of the power supply industry for over twenty five years. An active member of the PSMA since its founding, he had been a board member of the PSMA and currently serves on the Advisory Council.
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Help Wanted - Post Your Company Job Openings |
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 oes your company have job openings to be filled? Did you know that PSMA member companies can post their Job Openings on the PSMA web site? There is no charge for this service; it is a benefit of membership. Any interested individual can go to psma.com and review the opportunities posted and be directly linked to the HR organization of the posting company to submit their resume or to obtain additional information about the opportunity.
PSMA also posts student resumes on the psma.com web site in the "Members Only" section. We encourage all undergraduate and graduate students who are seeking employment to submit their resumes to the Association Office for posting on the web site. Since these resumes are only posted on the Members Only section of the web site, PSMA member companies will have preferred access to the resumes.
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Bad HR Processes Stymie Efforts To Hire |
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"No company can grow revenues consistently faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth and still become a great company. If your growth rate and revenues consistently outpace your growth rate in people, you simply will not, indeed, you cannot, build a great company." - Packard"s Law by David Packard  ompanies often state that their number one business concern is finding, attracting and retaining the right talent in their organizations. Packard"s Law presents an explanation-it almost reads like a mathematical theorem-of why this is the case. The same ideas are echoed by the popular sentiment, "people are our number one asset." But as we have so often seen in business, what companies say and what they do are often out of alignment. This concern has become very apparent as many engineers have been talking with me about a proximate issue of getting jobs in the industry at leading companies and I feel I must share this with you. The technology field, especially power electronics, is a very close knit group where many people in the field know one another. This may be partly attributed to the fact that engineers working in power electronics have a specialized set of skills, so the overall pool of practitioners is not very large. In fields such as power electronics, where many engineers know their fellow practitioners, it would be perfectly natural for a company to fill new engineering positions through networking. In days gone by, that was in fact, a common approach. If a company was looking for someone, a person within the organization would recommend someone they thought was a good candidate. Let"s say the candidate"s name was Fred. The person who recommended Fred would call him and say "Fred, send me your resume." That resume would then be given to human resources (HR) to arrange interviews and to start the process of hiring Fred. This was a common-sense approach supported by HR. Fast forward to the present and note how times have changed. As a hiring manager, I am told that this old approach is not allowed. For Fred to get hired today, he typically must enter his resume into some talent management system that has been store bought by HR from companies such as Taleo, Ceridian, or one of the other suppliers of such software systems. These systems all have two things in common-they are seemingly hostile to job candidates and as easy to use as braiding sawdust. Most of these systems require you to answer hundreds of questions, upload your resume, and then enter everything that"s on your resume all over again, in drop-down boxes and fill-in-the-blanks on their system. How are job candidates rewarded for their efforts? Most of the time they never hear back from the company. Or if they do, it"s a robot-generated Dear John letter about how they will keep your resume on file for 6 months. One individual I know received a "we will keep your resume on file in case" letter from a company that had already hired her. What"s more, when the letter arrived, she had been working at that company for a couple of years! As a hiring manager for an unnamed semiconductor company, I was once told we could hire some new engineers for product definition and applications work. I asked HR if we could use an external recruiter. The answer was no. I then asked if someone in HR could go into our external resume web system (where we make everyone enter their resume) and look for candidates who had the geographic and skill set matches we were looking for. The answer again was no-HR did not have enough resources (people) to do that for me. So I asked if I could log into the system so I could do it myself. Yet again, the answer was no. As HR explained, when the company bought the system, they only purchased X number of seats and could not buy more. This situation was so absurdly funny that I wrote to Dilbert about it. But sadly, HR did not see the irony in this situation. Nor did they acknowledge that there was anything wrong with the way the hiring system was set up. They maintained I had to follow the system even though the system was not working and could not possibly work. We likely had high-performing candidates in the database we could have had for "free," only the system would not allow us to get to them. Most likely, HR departments and many in corporate management believe that the current economic situation makes it necessary to put together systems that shield them from too many applicants. But in seeking to prevent a deluge of applications, is it really desirable to force individuals with at least two advanced degrees to do online clerical work and fight through the online shields to get an interview at a company that really needs them? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has issued grim news that nonfarm employment dropped in July 2010. According to the BLS, 6.6 million people have been jobless for 27 weeks or more and 8.5 million are working part time. We need 125,000 new jobs per month just to keep up with the growth of job seekers. So what does this mean to employers? Many companies act as if the only thing job candidates have to do is file online applications and that they have endless hours to do so. Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not market, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others...the ability to get and keep enough of the right people."
An engineer once said to me "engineering is the only solution to the challenges we face-these challenges can only be solved by engineers. "We need engineers to solve problems in energy, safety, efficiency, innovation-there"s simply no shortage of issues for engineers to solve. These issues will be solved by engineers not by HR, operations, finance, legal or other departments that may have a role in choosing or implementing these inane systems and processes that impede progress in hiring engineers. - from "Good to Great"
by Jim Collins. Do organizations really say what they mean about attracting and retaining people? If so, wouldn"t they be concerned that the most talented job applicants may be looking at the company websites and concluding that they have better things to do than try to fight these online hiring systems? How many good people give up? For companies to succeed they must address the flaws in their hiring systems. As engineers working in industry, it"s in all of our best interests to help companies deal with these issues. As a start, let"s challenge the assumptions by asking some simple questions. For example, would it hurt to employ some good recruiters to find the right people and bypass the shields that companies have put up to keep away candidates? What if a candidate could talk to the hiring manager or a knowledgeable HR person instead of being brushed off to the website? Why do HR departments act like they are guarding the hiring manager and actual decision makers like they are protecting a nuclear power plant? What"s the harm in talking to someone for five minutes to see if both parties are interested in working together? What if we spent the money on good engineers instead of web-based shield software? Why can"t we return the supporting departments within companies to truly supporting roles and let engineers engineer and innovate? Is the hiring blockade there to keep the horde of unemployed people away or do we have lots of unemployed people because they can"t get past the blockade? What if the right people could get the right positions in the right organizations and contribute to the bottom line? To get there, we need to restore common sense to the process, which can"t happen soon enough for me. What can engineers do while waiting for common sense to kick in? Use LinkedIn and other social networking sites to connect with people in important roles at companies you admire and want to work for. This is one way to bypass the "go to the website and apply" dead-end approach. I actually had an HR VP talk to me recently about getting more candidates and ask whether they should use social networking to attract people more effectively. This same company has one of those inane hiring systems. I told the VP to fix that system first, and then worry about social networking. Another piece of advice for engineers: attend some conferences. For example, the Applied Power Electronics Exposition and Conference (APEC), is a leading power electronics conference coming up in March. This event presents a good opportunity to talk to people about their work and what it"s like to work where they do. Visit with exhibiting companies and find out what they are doing and what skills they need. PSMA now lists resumes online as a service to the industry at www.psma.com. People do business with people, and people hire people. So do your best to meet and make direct contact with people and bypass the robots whenever possible.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the October 2010 issue of How2Power Today. |
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Power Electronics Stock Index: |
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 incoln International is pleased to present you with the Q2 2010 edition of the Power Electronics Stock Index from their global Electronics industry group.
The Power Electronics Stock Index provides you with information on the following:
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Solar Energy Stock Index: |
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incoln International’s™ Renewable Energy Group is pleased to present the latest 2010 Solar Energy Stock Index Report, which tracks relevant solar company metrics in this growing industry. Their Renewable Energy Group is at the forefront of the growth and development of the worldwide renewable energy industry. Whether through acquisition, divestiture, capital raising, or strategic investment, Lincoln’s industry expertise and global reach provide a valuable resource to companies seeking to implement their renewable energy initiatives. Areas of focus include biofuels, fuel cells / batteries, geothermal, hydroelectric, smart-grid technologies, solar and wind energies. The Solar Energy Stock Index Report, published by their Renewable Energy team each quarter, provides you with information on the following:
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Power Electronics DealReader: |
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incoln International is pleased to present you with the latest issue of the Power Electronics DealReader from their global Electronics industry group. This will provide you with:
This data is included with the permission of Lincoln International. For more information, you may contact John McManus (jmcman@optonline.net) or the Association Office.
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Lincoln International's Solar Energy DealReader: |
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incoln International is pleased to present you with the latest DealReader from their global Renewable Energy industry group. This will provide you with:
This data is included with the permission of Lincoln International. For more information, you may contact John McManus (jmcman@optonline.net) or the Association Office.
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If you or anyone in your company is interested in getting on the distribution list for future issues of PSMA UPDATE, please send e-mail to: power@psma.com. Be sure to include your name and
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