APEC

The Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC2020), to be held in New Orleans, LA, March 15-20, 2020, will feature an Industry Session sponsored by the Energy Harvesting Committee of the Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA).  This Industry Session, “Energy Harvesting Enables the IoT and 5G,” features three timely presentations plus a capstone hands-on demonstration period. The session will address the latest developments in this rapidly emerging technology ecosystem that is disruptively increasing in relevance for a wide variety of power electronic applications, particularly IoT where the grand challenge is to get the battery to outlive the IoT edge device. The Energy Harvesting Session (IS11) will be held on Wednesday, March 18, from 8:30 to 10:10 a.m. in the New Orleans Convention Center, Room R07. 

The session includes four presentations:

• 3D Silicon Capacitive Interposer for RF Energy Harvesting Device: Higher Efficiency, Higher Integration and Simplified Topology (Mohamed Mehdi Jatlaoui, Murata)
• Optimizing Piezoelectric Synchronized-Discharge Harvesters (Siyu Yang, Qualcomm)
• Growing the Power IoT Ecosystem (Mike Hayes, Tyndall National Institute)
• Live Demo (Brian Zahnstecher, PowerRox)

In addition to registering for the Energy Harvesting session, APEC attendees are encouraged to participate in the many other informative and timely PSMA-sponsored Industry Sessions and Committee Meetings taking place during the show.

PSMA Energy Harvesting Committee Meeting Notice
All APEC attendees are invited to attend the PSMA Energy Harvesting Committee meeting, scheduled for 12:00 to 2:00 pm on Tuesday, March 17th in the New Orleans Convention Center, Meeting Room 231.
 

The Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) Semiconductor Committee is sponsoring a total of four Industry Sessions at APEC 2020 that address the rapid emergence of wide bandgap semiconductors as a significant power conversion technology. The sessions will take place on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, March 17-19, 2020, in the New Orleans Convention Center. 

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 four sessions are as follows:

• IS4: Tuesday March 17, 8:30 to 11:55 a.m., Room R06
  • “Silicon and Wide Bandgap Performance”
• IS8: Wednesday March 18 from 8:30 to 10:10 a.m., Room R02-03
  • “Production Use Cases of Wide Bandgap Semiconductors”
• IS23: Thursday March 19 from 8:30 to 11:25 a.m., Room R07
  • “The Modernization of Quality and Reliability: Testing Methods & Benchmarks for GaN and SiC”
• IS30: Thursday March 19 from 1:45 to 5:25 p.m., Room 8
  • “Challenges of Semiconductor System Integration for Power Electronics”

“SiC and GaN have been the most popular topics at APEC over the past several years. It is clear that the promise that these devices have offered in size and efficiency gains are being realized,” said Tim McDonald, Co-Chairman of the PSMA Semiconductor Committee. In addition to informative presentations, these Industry Sessions will afford attendees the opportunity to interact and network with industry colleagues engaged in power conversion system design.

PSMA Semiconductor Committee Meeting Notice
All APEC attendees are invited to attend the PSMA Semiconductor Committee meeting, scheduled for 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17th, in the New Orleans Convention Center, Room 232.

The Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) Packaging Committee is sponsoring an Industry Session at APEC 2020 in New Orleans, LA titled, “Packaging Power Circuits to Make Small and Reliable Products.” Featuring speakers from leading industry and research organizations, the session (IS15) will present an up-to-date look at current and future packaging and manufacturing technologies utilizing high-density 3D packaging. The session will take place on Wednesday afternoon, March 18th, 2020, from 2:30 - 5:35 p.m. in Room R1 of the New Orleans Convention Center.

Manufacturers utilizing power sources in their products are continually asking for smaller solutions. The industry can deliver with new components, design and manufacturing techniques that support higher density, higher reliability, and higher frequency operation. A 3D packaging approach using embedded components (actives and passives) combined with advanced manufacturing technologies is proving to be the most reliable solution, offering the fastest time to market for achieving increased power density in a smaller footprint. This solution is already in production in semiconductor, component and power supply designs.

The 3D Power Packaging Industry Session will feature seven invited experts, offering application details, real-world examples of implementation and a comprehensive analysis of the reliability challenges of high power in small packages. Attendees will get a realistic understanding of the challenges in diverse applications such as 5G base stations and automotive motor drives.

Co-chairs of the session, Ernie Parker of Crane of Aerospace & Electronics and Brian Narveson of Narveson Consulting, encourage industry professionals to attend the Industry Session on 3D Power Packaging. Parker stated, “This session will provide a valuable opportunity to meet other professionals who are active in the evolving design, reliability and manufacturing of 3D in higher power applications.” Narveson added, “The 3D Power Packaging Industry Sessions at APEC continues to be the place to go for leading edge packaging solutions.”

PSMA Packaging Committee Meeting Notice
All APEC attendees are invited to attend the PSMA Packaging Committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday, March 17th, 2020 from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon in the New Orleans Convention Center Room 231.  Participants are also encouraged to participate in the other PSMA-sponsored meetings being held throughout the week.

The Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) Energy Management Committee is sponsoring Industry Session IS29 at APEC2020 on Thursday, March 19th, at 1:45 pm in the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center. Four presentations each address an “if” that can throw a wrench into a power converter design:

• “If Your Efficiency is Too Low, Your Sales will be Too Low” (Ada Cheng, Ada’Clock; Arnold Alderman, Anagenesis, Inc)
• “If Your Standby Power is Too High, Your Power Converter Won’t Sell” (David Chen, Power Integrations’ Director Applications Engineering)
•  “If Your Power Converter is Not Safe, You May Have an Expensive Recall” (Mark Batulan, Product Safety Engineer, Power Integrations)
• “EMI: If You Don’t Comply, It Will Interfere with Your Sales.” (Jim Spangler, Spangler Prototype, Kevin Parmenter, Taiwan Semiconductor US)

Most power converter designers know that a product design must meet its design specification.  They may not be aware of regional standards and regulations that also must be met. The testing of the product and its labeling may have special requirements as well. Failure to comply may mean that the product cannot be marketed or used in some jurisdictions or for some applications. The topics in this Industry Session will address the more important standards and regulations that must be met.

Time saving data bases
This Industry Session also will introduce two databases that are maintained by PSMA to find these elusive standards and regulations: 1) The Energy Efficiency Database, maintained by the PSMA Energy Management Committee; and 2), The Safety and Compliance Database, maintained by the PSMA Safety and Compliance Committee. 

“These comprehensive databases, which can be searched using any of several criteria. are great time savers if you are looking for an efficiency regulation or a standard,” reported Ed Herbert, Session Chair. “Plus, you can sign up for daily activity updates that keeps you informed of new regulations or new standards activity, or both. These tools are a free service from PSMA.”

PSMA Energy Management Committee Meeting Notice
Interested individuals are also invited to participate in the PSMA Energy Management Committee meeting on Tuesday, March 17th from 2:00 – 4:00 pm to plan the committee program for the coming year.
 

PSMA Meeting Schedule at APEC 2020 (PDF)

The 2019 PSMA Planning Meeting was held on October 5, 2019 at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside in New Orleans, LA with 24 members in attendance. The purpose of the Planning Meeting was to review where the Association is today, discuss outstanding issues and to identify possible programs and projects that promise to bring value to the membership.

PSMA Chairman Stephen Oliver led the meeting and reviewed his vision for the organization and summarized the general health of the association as well as membership statistics and the changes since the 2018 Planning Meeting. He listed organizations PSMA interacts with, reviewed recent sponsored conferences and workshops and emphasized that the technical committees are the heart of the organization. It is in these committees that the real work of PSMA is done.

In discussing some of the areas of concern to the organization he highlighted the need to continue to invest in special projects that will bring value to our members, increase the effort to develop more and deeper involvement with more individuals within member companies and the continued commitment to bring more industry content to APEC.

Stephen reported on the progress of the "Tiger Teams", powerful, agile groups of experts brought together for a single, short project, formed out of the 2018 Planning Meeting. He noted that the Tiger Team list will be reviewed and updated at the end of the meeting based on the topics identified during the meeting.

Tim McDonald, Secretary/Treasurer, presented a preliminary draft of the latest 6-Quarter financial forecast, which indicated that the Association will remain in a reasonable financial position over the period which will allow funding to support Special Projects that promise to bring value to the membership and the industry.

There was a report from each of the technical committees that summarized their accomplishments over the past year and focused on ongoing programs and projects for 2020. Eight of the technical committees have submitted proposals to organize Industry Sessions at APEC 2020 and all technical committees are supporting the 2021 Power Technology Roadmap effort. In addition:

• Pierre Lohrber, Capacitor Committee Co-Chair, reported that the committee has completed 2 educational webinars on Capacitor Fundamentals, and is planning a third webinar in January. They are also organizing the third pre-APEC workshop "How to Choose and Define Capacitor Usage for Various Applications, Wideband Trends, and New Technologies"  
• Energy Harvesting Committee Co-Chairs Mike Hayes and Brian Zahnstecher reported that the committee is organizing EnerHarv 2020 to be held at NCSU in June 2020. The committee is hoping to organize a student competition and looking for volunteers to help with this effort.
• David Chen and Ed Herbert, Energy Management Committee Co-Chairs, reported that the committee is considering a potential research project for 2020 on residential energy storage or a report summarizing worldwide standards and regulations. The committee continues to support the Energy Efficiency Database (EEDB) on the PSMA website.
• An Industry-Education meeting was held prior to the main planning meeting which had active participation and suggestions from all attendees. In recent years the committee has primarily focused on APEC Student Travel Support, but there is a lot of interest in expanding the committee activities. Following up on the face-to-face meeting, there will be a teleconference in November for all interested members to develop specific programs and activities aimed at students to help them to better understand the power industry and making informed career decisions.
• Ed Herbert, Magnetics Committee Co-Chair, reported that the committee held a very successful Magnetics Workshop at APEC 2019 and is organizing a fifrth Power Magnetics @ High Frequency Workshop, for the Saturday before APEC 2020. The committee is also working on a Special Project with SMA on core testing and continues to support the Magnetics reprints available from the PSMA website.
• Frank Cirolia and Greg Evans, Marketing Committee Co-Chair, reviewed the recent activities of the committee including plans for APEC 2020. For the seventh year, the committee will sponsor the "PSMA Passport Game" to increase visibility and traffic to PSMA member exhibit booths during APEC and is exploring options for including the Passport in the APEC app in the future. A major focus at APEC 2020 will be on PSMA turning 35, including a "birthday party" at the PSMA booth in the Expo Hall, a memory wall, a large display that participants can sign listing what they appreciate about PSMA, an interactive timeline video and more. The committee is also supporting the 35th Anniversary article and podcast project which will include 12 monthly feature-length articles in Electronic Design and 8-10 podcasts published by EEWorld. A new PSMA logo is being designed and the proposed logo is currently being reviewed. And the committee is working to update the "Handbook of Standardized Terminology" and considering making it web based.
• The Power Electronics Packaging Committee continues to be very active, with 2-4 meetings a month, as reported by committee Co-Chair, Ernie Parker. IWIPP 2019 in Toulouse in April was very successful with over 90 attendees (target was 70). The committee is organizing the 3D-PEIM 2020 Symposium to be held in Osaka Japan in June. The committee is also planning for PwrSoC 2020 at the University of Pennsylvania and PwrPack, a mini PwrSoC, at Arizona State University in October 2019.
• Conor Quinn, Power Technology Roadmap Committee Co-Chair, reported that the 2019 Power Technology Roadmap Report was published in March and was the subject of a Plenary Presentation at APEC 2019.  The PTR 2021 Committee will be formed in December 2019. The committee will include both returning Section Leaders and New Blood – volunteers and nominees are welcome. A new PTR webinar series will begin in January of 2020 and continue through the year.  The 2021 Power Technology Roadmap Report needs to be finalized by December of 2020 and the report will be published in March, in time for APEC 2021.
• Reliability Committee Co-Chair Brian Zahnstecher reported that the committee was formed in July 2017 and now has 27 members. The Power Supply SW/FW Reliability report was recently completed and a copy was sent to all PSMA Regular members.  The committee's next proposed project is to create and publish a document (or series of documents) to enhance procedures for development, interaction, and verification of communication bus to improve Quality & Reliability.

• While the Safety & Compliance Committee is not meeting currently and looking for new leadership, the committee continues to support the Safety and Compliance Data Base (SCDB)on the PSMA website. Arnold Alderman provided an update on the SCDB. The database continues to grow both in the number of standards, regions and agencies tracked and the number of registered users. Committee members also contribute a monthly column in How2Power.
• Semiconductor Committee Co-Chair Tim McDonald reported that the committee has proposed 4 Industry Sessions for APEC 2020. The committee will manage the Component Technology section of the 2021 Power Technology Roadmap Report and plans to contribute a minimum of 6 webinars for the Roadmap webinar series.  The committee is also supporting as technical and financial co-sponsor with IEEE PELS the WiPDA Workshop in Raleigh, NC.
• Fred Weber, Transportation Power Electronics Committee Co-Chair, report that the committee is planning a webinar on what the DOE is doing to enable electrification of vehicles and their infrastructure. The committee supported a 2019 study of automotive executives and engineers.  The results were clear – few in this industry were aware of PSMA and/or APEC.  If PSMA wants to reach this segment, a clearly stated business case for automotive OEMs and Tier 1s to join PSMA is needed.  A flyer will be created to help in those efforts and a tiger team is suggested to help drive this initiative to expand PSMA membership in the Automotive Industry.

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).

Following the committee reports, PSMA President Mike Hayes led the Planning Discussion which focused on updating the Tiger Teams lists based on initiatives and topics identified during the meeting.

PSMA members can view the minutes of the Planning Meeting on the "Members Only" section of the PSMA web site.

The APEC Technical Program Committee for APEC 2020 met on Sunday and were joined by many of the PSMA members from the Planning Meeting. Based on the results of their work we can all look forward to a very interesting and a successful APEC 2020.

The folks in New Orleans like to say, "laissez le bon temps rouler," that is "let the good times roll." And that certainly holds true for all of us currently in the power electronics industry. Never in the history of electronics has the contribution of power conversion been more in the forefront. Efficiency is a top priority of nearly every new design. And the latest advances in technology are touching virtually every aspect of our industry, from passive components to semiconductors and packaging. And there just isn't anywhere else on earth our industry comes together so completely to learn, connect and grow than at the Applied Power Electronics Conference. So, get yourself ready to let those good times roll at APEC 2020 in New Orleans next March.

The Call-for-Papers closed in July with over 1,000 digests submitted. Now the committee and over 100 volunteers have the task of peer-reviewing all the digests in preparation for the mid-year meeting in early October. At that time, the tough task will be to select the top 500+ papers for the program. Students with an accepted paper are encouraged to apply for APEC Student Travel Support. For more information, see the article on page 4 of this issue.

Work continues in development of the Plenary Session program. The committee has put together an exceptional roster of potential candidates. The program will be finalized before the next edition of this newsletter. The Plenary Session is expected to attract well over 2,000 attendees. In addition, IEEE.tv will, once again, be streaming the entire session, live, for those who can't make it to APEC by Monday afternoon.

By early September 2019, all the submissions of proposals for both the very popular Industry Sessions as well as the highly informative Professional Education Seminars will be under consideration. The Industry Session tracks that run in parallel with the Technical Sessions are expected to be as popular as ever.

At APEC 2019, over 1500 attendees arrived early to take advantage of the weekend and Monday morning Professional Education Seminars. The committee is planning for a repeat of this attendance in 2020.

The exhibit area for APEC 2020 has been expanded and it looks like the exhibit hours will be extended on Tuesday. As always, the APEC exhibits will be buzzing with the latest innovations to make your design job successful. The Wednesday Social Event will be held at Mardi Gras World with over 1000 attendees expected. It should be an interesting venue to view the many floats and costumes used during Mardi Gras events.

On the Saturday prior to the start of APEC2020, PSMA and PELS will again be sponsoring two workshops, the fifth High Frequency Magnetics Workshop and the third Capacitor Workshop. For more information see the articles on each workshop in this issue of the UPDATE.

Registration opens the week of October 28th.  Go to https://www.apec-conf.org/ to get all the information you need. In addition to making your reservation to attend, you will also be able to book your hotel accommodations. APEC has secured blocks of rooms at the close-in hotels to the convention center.  As usual, these rooms will sell out long before next March.

The entire APEC Conference Committee is excited about bringing our Premier Global Event in Applied Power Electronics to New Orleans, March 15-19, 2020. Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Provided by Greg Evans, APEC 2020 Publicity Chair

ver 70 PSMA members and guests attended the PSMA Annual Meeting, held at the Anaheim Marriott in Anaheim, CA on Monday March 18, 2019.

The buffet breakfast before the meeting start provided attendees an opportunity for networking and meeting colleagues. The Chairman Stephen Oliver officially opened the meeting by welcoming all the attendees and asked each to briefly introduce themselves. Among those present were many of the 60 recipients of the APEC Student Travel Support. This support is provided jointly by IAS, PELS and PSMA and attracted 109 applicants from 63 different schools in 16 countries.

Next on the agenda was the election of five people to the Board of Directors. The following candidates were elected to the Board of Directors for the three-year term (2019-2022):

Ada Cheng (Affiliate Member) was elected to fill the unexpired term (2019-2020) vacated by Alain Chapuis.

Stephen Oliver and the attendees congratulated and welcomed Trifon Liakopoulos, Ralph Taylor, and Matt Wilkowski and Ada Cheng as newly elected Directors.

The Chair recognized the contributions of Michel Grenon and Brian Narveson whose terms as Directors expired at the meeting and expressed the appreciation of PSMA for their service and continued contributions to the Association.

Stephen Oliver then presented an award to Trifon Liakopoulos in recognition of his outstanding contributions over the past three PwrSoC Workshops as Financial Chair for each of the events. He also presented awards to Dhaval Dalal and Conor Quinn for their Quinn for their leadership as Co-Chairs of the 2019 Power Technology Roadmap.

Trifon Liakopoulos and Stephen Oliver

Conor Quinn, Dhaval Dalal and Stephen Oliver

PSMA Chairman, Stephen Oliver

The Chair briefly reviewed some of the major accomplishments of the association for the past year including:

• Organizing 9 Industry Sessions for APEC2019
• Organizing the fourth Magnetics Workshop and second Capacitor Workshop the day prior to APEC2019
• Holding EnerHarv, PwrSoC and 3D-PEIM workshops and a joint workshop with CPSS in China during 2018
• Continuous updating of the Energy Efficiency and Safety and Compliance Data Bases
• Publishing for 2019 Power Technology Roadmap
• Joint sponsorship of APEC Student Travel Awards

Stephen also reviewed the Membership Statistics since APEC 2018 which currently shows a total of more than 200 Members – a new high.

The Chairman then discussed his vision for the organization. He looks to continue the amazing growth of the activities of the Technical Committees to make PSMA the relevant source for technology and market trends, to increase collaborations with selected partners, to have an increased presence on social media, and to increase the Regular Membership by focusing on emerging markets. He highlighted the successes and continuing work of the newly formed "Tiger Teams", powerful, agile groups of experts brought together for a single, short project, to address some of the current opportunities and challenges. Stephen also encouraged the membership to pick one or two of the Technical Committees and to actively participate in their activities as being the best way for people to increase the benefits of membership.

Following the Chairman's Report was a Financial Report. Outgoing Secretary/ Treasurer, Michel Grenon was unable to attend the meeting. but provided a report on the current financial status of the Association and a six-quarter financial forecast. Joe Horzepa reviewed the report which supported that the financial status and outlook for the Association continues to be very positive The surpluses from APEC conference together with the PSMA sponsored and co-sponsored workshops and events should generate sufficient funds to support a number of Special Projects that can be of benefit for the membership and the power sources industry.

Each of the PSMA Committees presented a report. You can read more about these on page 3 of this issue.

Ernie Parker, General Chair for APEC 2019, provided an update on the overall conference. APEC2019 is expected to be a financial success with a full program of events. The schedule includes 18 Professional Educational Seminars, 592 Technical Papers in 8 parallel sessions and Dialog session, 119 Industry Sessions in 5 parallel sessions, 3 Rap Sessions, 302 exhibitors in the Exhibit Hall and a Social Event.

Jose Cobos will be the General Chair for APEC 2020 which will be held at the Ernest Moria Convention Center in New Orleans LA March 15 – 19, 2020.

Manfred Schlenk, EPSMA Vice President

The invited speaker at this year's Annual Meeting was Manfred Schlenk from the European Power Sources Association – EPSMA - who presented an overview of the number of companies in the organization and the current focus. They have a 17-member Technical Committee with experts on safety, EMC, and product qualification. The output of the Technical Committee includes a series of best practices and design guides. The organization also works to influence international standards with CENELEC as a liaison partner.

Before adjourning, Chairman Stephen Oliver asked the attendees for their comments and any suggestions for the future directions and activities for Association that would increase the value of their membership. A number of areas were discussed including suggestions for encouraging students to participate in the industry and to consider career opportunities in power sources and power electronics. These and other suggestions will be considered by the Board. Stephen Oliver thanked all presenters and attendees for their participation and invited interested individuals to attend the March meeting of the PSMA Board of Directors, which immediately followed.
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.

The Sunday prior to the Annual Meeting PSMA hosted a reception with members of the China Power Supply Society (CPSS). This provided a great opportunity for members of both organizations to network and discuss options and activities that will benefit members of both organizations over the next year. Several members of CPSS also attended the PSMA Annual Meeting.

The Annual Meeting, PSMA Committee meetings, as well as the technical sessions, seminars, Industry Presentations, exhibits and other events kept PSMA members busy all the week. The APEC social event, featured a number of Food Trucks serving a variety of food options, several game activities and music, gave everyone a chance to relax and enjoy themselves.

There was a full exhibit hall at APEC 2019. Many of the PSMA member companies exhibiting participated in a "Passport" game in which attendees who visited their booths had their passport booklets stamped. Attendees turned in their completed passports for a chance to win an AirPods, a Samsung Smartwatch and the grand prize a Charles and Colvard Necklace, Featuring Gemstone Grade Silicon Carbide by Wolfspeed, A Cree Company. Traffic to members' booths was brisk and the lucky winners were very happy with the prizes. 

PSMA APEC Passport Prize Winners

Additional videos from APEC are available at https://ieeetv.ieee.org/event-showcase/apec-2017