About Professional Education Seminars
The APEC Professional Education Seminars focus on practical aspects of the power electronics profession and provide in-depth discussion of important and complex power electronics topics. Each of the three-and-a-half-hour seminars combine practical application with theory and are designed to further educate the working professionals and students in power electronics.
Click here to learn more about presenting a seminar at APEC 2025.
APEC 2024 Seminar Program at a Glance
While the APEC 2025 Professional Seminar Education program is being developed take a look at the excellent seminars that were presented at APEC 2024.
The APEC 2024 Professional Education Seminars offered an outstanding opportunity to learn from distinguished and respected power electronics professionals. The table below shows summarizes the seminar program in an easy-to-understand grid with links to the abstracts and the speaker bios.
Track | Session One: Sunday, Feb 25, 2024 9:30 AM – 1:00 PM | Session Two: Sunday, Feb 25, 2024 2:30 PM – 6:00 PM | Session Three: Monday, Feb 26, 2024 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM |
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Systems | S01: Advanced Power Electronics for Smart Battery Testing, Analysis, and Digital Twin-based Battery Management Systems Room 102AB Speakers: Sheldon Williamson, Ontario Tech University, CANADA; David Theuerkauf, AVL Test Systems, USA; Akash Samanta, Ontario Tech University, CANADA | S07: DC Fault Protection: Current Status, Fundamental Challenges, and Future Outlook Room 102AB Speaker: John Shen, Simon Fraser University, CANADA | S13: Solid State Transformer: Topologies, Use Cases, Design Considerations, and Challenges Room 102AB Speaker: Ilknur Colak, Schneider Electric, FRANCE |
EMI & Magnetics | S02: Modern Magnetic Technologies For Very High Efficiency And Power Density Room 104B Speaker: Ionel Dan Jitaru, Rompower Energy Systems, USA | S08: EMC Workshop for Power Supply Designers Room 104C Speaker: Jared Quenzer, Würth Elektronik, USA | S14: EMI/EMC Debugging with Oscilloscopes Room 103AB Speaker: Arturo Mediano, University of Zaragoza, SPAIN |
Design | S03: Optimal LLC Converter Design: From First Harmonic Approximation through Design Oriented Analysis Room 104A Speaker: Mladen Ivankovic, Infineon Technologies, USA | S09: Three-Level Neutral-Point-Clamped Converters When Two Levels are not Enough Room 101AB Speakers: Sergio Busquets-Monge, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, SPAIN; Ariya Sangwongwanich, Aalborg University, DENMARK; Mateja Novak, Aalborg University, DENMARK | S15: PV Inverter Design – Topologies, Control and System Considerations Room 101AB Speakers: Arnab Acharya, Arizona State University, USA; Dhaval Dalal, Arizona State University, USA; Raja Ayyanar, Arizona State University, USA |
High Power Density | S04: Compact Control Loops for Switched-Inductor DC-DC Power Supplies Room 103AB Speaker: Gabriel A. Rincón-Mora, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA | S10: Direct to Chip (DtC) DC-DC Converters for AI Chips Room 104A Speaker: José Cobos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, SPAIN | S16: Technologies for Achieving Ultra-High Efficiency and Ultra-High Power Density DC-DC Power Converters Room 104A Speakers: Yan-Fei Liu, Queen’s University, CANADA; Don Tan, E2 Systems, USA |
Applications | S05: Power Electronics Technologies for Data Center Energy Saving and Decarbonization Room 101AB Speakers: Yenan Chen, Zhejiang University, CHINA; Dehong Xu, Zhejiang University, CHINA | S11: The Complete Guide to PCB Layout for HV GaN Power Stages Room 104B Speaker: Eric Persson, Infineon Technologies, USA | S17: High-Power GaN Devices and Applications Room 104B Speakers: Davide Bisi, Transphorm, USA; Philip Zuk, Transphorm, USA; Tushar Dhayagude, Transphorm, USA |
Control | S06: Advanced Power-Electronics Control for Practicing Engineers Room 104C Speakers: Sudip Mazumder, University of Illinois, USA; Debanjan Chatterjee, ABB Corporate Research Center, USA | S12: State Space Based Control As an Alternative to Conventional Loop Design Room 103AB Speaker: Dorin Neacșu, Technical University of Iasi, ROMANIA | S18: Practical Implementation of Mixed-Signal Controllers for Conventional and Emerging High-Frequency Dc-Dc SMPS Room 104C Speaker: Aleksandar Prodić, University of Toronto, CANADA |
APEC 2024 Seminar Abstracts and Speaker Biographies
S01: Advanced Power Electronics for Smart Battery Testing, Analysis, and Digital Twin-based Battery Management Systems
Batteries play a pivotal role in ensuring the long-term technical and commercial success of e-mobility. Their dynamic characteristics necessitate rigorous testing and analysis to ensure battery safety, reliability, and performance. Testing and analysis not only underpin innovation, but also contribute to the sustainability of battery technology and its applications. Keeping this in mind, this professional education seminar will comprehensively address a wide array of testing techniques, standards, and market-available products. Notably, battery degradation is pronounced during low-temperature fast charging. Thus, few health-conscious fast charging methods and associated power electronics will be discussed. Given the intricate and sensitive nature of LIB behavior under varying conditions, implementing intelligent safety frameworks and smart battery management systems (BMS) becomes paramount. Here, a detailed discussion on the functionalities of BMS and associated power electronics converters will be discussed. For effective BMS operation, detailed information of battery states and aging profiles are indispensable. Recent strides in cloud computing, digital twin technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning-based state estimators hold substantial promise in addressing these challenges. Hence, the latest progress and emerging trends in these domains, including thermal management control and the IoT will be discussed, catering to researchers and development engineers alike.
S01 Presenter(s)
Sheldon Williamson (Fellow, IEEE) received a B.E. degree (Hons.) in electrical engineering from the University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India, in 1999, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees (Hons.) in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA, in 2002 and 2006, respectively. He is a Professor with the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering and the Director of Smart Transportation Electrification and Energy Research (STEER) Group, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, ON, Canada. His research interests include advanced power electronics, electric energy storage systems, and motor drives for transportation electrification. He holds the prestigious NSERC Canada Research Chair position in electric energy storage systems for transportation electrification.
David Theuerkauf graduated from the University of Prince Edward Island in 2020 with a degree in Design Engineering and a focus on the strategic overcharging of Lead Acid batteries for desulfation. In 2022, he furthered his education by obtaining a Master of Applied Science from Dalhousie University under the guidance of Dr. Lukas Swan. During this period, his research centered on cell-level Li-ion testing and applications. This experience bolstered his expertise in battery testing and the application of power electronics in the realm of smart battery analyzers and testers. Presently, David holds the position of Technical Sales Specialist at AVL, where he leads a team dedicated to the development and sales of battery analyzers.
Akash Samanta (Student Member, IEEE) received B. Tech degree (1st class) in Electrical Engineering from the West Bengal University of Technology in 2012 and M. Tech (1st class) and MBA degree in Electrical Engineering and Energy Management from the University of Calcutta in 2018 and 2014, respectively. From 2014 to 2018 he was a Project Officer and Solar Energy Master Trainer with the Department of Energy Management, Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, Kolkata, India. He is currently a Doctoral Research Scholar with the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering at Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, ON, Canada. His research interests include electric energy storage systems, battery management systems, power electronics converters, and the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the related field. He has organized and conducted several tutorials, workshops, professional seminars, and short courses in various flagship IEEE Conferences.
S02: Modern Magnetic Technologies For Very High Efficiency And Power Density
The tremendous progress in semiconductor technology moved the spotlight for efficiency quest towards magnetics. The progress in magnetic technology has been limited, though novel magnetic solutions were developed and used in some recent applications. The seminar will focus on the latest magnetic technologies capable of pushing efficiency to a very high level. A study of the loss mechanism in magnetics and ways to improve it, together with novel magnetic structures will be presented.
The seminar will present in detail all the parasitic elements in magnetics, the loss mechanism associated with it and solutions in addressing them. The following items will be analyzed:
- Leakage Inductance and methods of control and reduction.
- Stray Inductance and its effects.
- Parasitic capacitances and method of reduction.
- Gap effect and techniques to reduce it.
- EMI suppression in transformers.
- Loss due to the “end effect:” and methods of reduction.
This section will also be highlighted with design examples in application wherein the power conversion efficiency reached 99%. The presentation will include the “multi-legged” magnetic technology, which is the latest magnetic technology today, referred also as “ultra-planar” magnetic. Other forms of distributed magnetic structures will be presented, some of them in power converters with the highest power density and lowest profile on the market.
S02 Presenter(s)
Ionel “Dan” Jitaru is the founder of Rompower Inc., an internationally recognized engineering firm in the field of power conversion. Rompower Inc. was acquired by Ascom Energy Systems AG in 2001 and became later Ascom-Rompower Inc. In 2003 Ascom Energy Systems AG merged with Delta Electronics and Rompower become Delta Energy Systems (Arizona) Inc, wherein Ionel “Dan” Jitaru served as a president. In 2013 he founded Rompower Energy Systems Inc. Rompower Energy Systems Inc. is a research and development engineering firm in the field of power conversion.
Ionel “Dan” Jitaru has published 65 papers, wherein several of them have received the best paper award and held 52 professional seminars at different International Conferences in the power conversion. Mr. Jitaru has pioneered several trends in power conversion technologies such as “Soft Switching PWM,” “Full integrated multilayer PCB Planar Magnetic,” “Synchronized rectification” and recently “True Soft Switching technologies.” Some of these technologies have been covered by 63 intellectual properties wherein 37 are granted patents.
S03: Optimal LLC Converter Design: From First Harmonic Approximation through Design Oriented Analysis
The training provides practical approach based on Design Oriented Analysis to develop a high-performance LLC tank configuration in relation to your design targets, and selects the right components and optimizes their values, based on a power loss budgeting plan.
Design is the reverse of Analysis: one starts with specification, which is answer to the analysis, and one has to work the analysis backwards to find starting point, which is the circuit configuration and the element values. LLC converter FHA model was used to develop circuit equations that are simple yet physically insightful. Boundary condition investigation using vectors is the core of this method. Discovery of the orthogonality between inverse gain vector of the LLC and serial equivalent load vector leads to the very simple and close form equations for the LLC components. They enable seamless flow and exchange between analysis and design. Having in mind the limitations of FHA model, it was necessary to bring exact solution from time domain and compare them with FHA results. It was done by using simplified LT spice simulation. Comparison resulted with generation of the ROT (Rules of thumb) for LLC design. The topic will be treated in depth on intermediate level.
S03 Presenter(s)
Mladen Ivankovic is a Senior Principal Engineer at Infineon Technologies. His current interests are optimum design of the LLC converter for different applications like server power supplies, battery charges, solar energy converters and MOSFET cascode switching for high voltage applications. He has a Bachelor Science Degree in Electrical Engineering University for Electrical Engineering from Sarajevo, Bosnia & Hercegovina, a Master Science Degree in Electrical Engineering University for Electrical Engineering, Sarajevo, Bosnia & Hercegovina. He holds 10 patents.
S04: Compact Control Loops for Switched‐Inductor DC–DC Power Supplies
Switched‐inductor dc–dc power supplies are pervasive in consumer electronics. This is because they deliver a large fraction of the power they draw with an output voltage that is largely independent of the load and the input. Keeping the output voltage steady this way is the responsibility of the feedback controller. This talk uses insight and intuition to show how pulse‐width‐modulated (PWM), hysteretic, and timed peak/valley loops switch the inductor, offset the voltage they control, and respond to load dumps and input variations. The presentation then shows how summing comparators operate and how they can contract, offset, and compensate these control loops (for reduced offset and stable operating conditions). Some of the topics discussed include negative feedback, frequency response, bandwidth, response time, sub‐harmonic oscillations, and voltage‐ and current‐mode control. While some of the concepts discussed can be found in literature, they are often abstract, algebraic, incomplete, and spread over several sources. This presentation, on the other hand, is concise, comprehensive, and full of insight. With this background and understanding, designing and implementing compact feedback controllers for switched‐inductor power supplies is more straightforward. This tutorial is intended for entry, intermediate, and advanced technologists in the field of power electronics.
S04 Presenter(s)
Gabriel A. Rincón‐Mora is Motorola Solutions Foundation Professor at Georgia Tech, Fellow of the American National Academy of Inventors, Fellow of the IEEE, and Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. He was with Texas Instruments in 1994–2003 and has been with Georgia Tech since 2001. He was inducted into Georgia Tech’s Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni, named one of “The 100 Most Influential Hispanics” by Hispanic Business magazine, included in “List of Notable Venezuelan Americans” in Science, and selected IEEE Distinguished Lecturer (three two‐year terms). He received the National Hispanic in Technology Award, Charles E. Perry Visionary Award, Three‐ Year Patent Award, Orgullo Hispano Award, Hispanic Heritage Award, and a State of California Commendation Certificate. His body of work includes 11 books, 8 handbooks, 4 book chapters, 43 patents, over 190 articles, 25 educational videos, over 26 commercial power‐chip products released to production, and over 160 keynote addresses, distinguished lectures, and research seminars.
S05: Power Electronics Technologies for Data Center Energy Saving and Decarbonization
The world’s data centers currently consume about 480 to 660 TWh of electricity annually, accounting for 1.7% to 2.2% of the world’s electricity generation. Traditional power delivery architectures in data centers are bulky and inefficient. About 40% of the data center energy consumption comes from the losses in power conversion. Such high energy consumption and the related carbon emission have raised public concerns about their economic and environmental impact.
There is a long path to convert electricity from the utility grid to the onboard CPUs, including multiple AC-DC, DC-AC, DC-DC stages from 10 kVac to ~ 1Vdc. This tutorial will introduce the current status of ICT industry on both digital and energy aspects, provide an overview of the state-of-the-art of power supply architecture and topology in data centers, and discuss the key principles on designing and implementing these power electronics technologies for data center energy saving and decarbonization.
Three topics will be discussed: zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) three-phase/single-phase AC-DC/DCAC/ BTB converters as grid interface, Super-UPS/Multicell MIMO energy router for renewable integration, and 48-V voltage regulator modules (VRM) for high current CPU and GPU. The ZVS AC-DC/DC-AC/BTB converters aim to solve the switching loss issue and improve the efficiency and power density of the grid interface of data centers. Based on the resonant dc link concept, a family of three-phase/single-phase ZVS AC-DC/DC-AC/BTB converters and a unified modulation strategy (Edge Aligned-PWM) will be introduced. The engineering challenges, practical details of this approach, and the impact of wide bandgap (WBG) devices tech will be discussed.
The second topic introduces two architectures for renewable integration in data centers: the Super-UPS and Multicell MIMO (Multi-Input Multi-Output) energy router. Super-UPS is the evolution of UPS by adding natural gas, PV, and Hydrogen fuel cell to the DC bus by multiple bi-directional DC-DC converters and DC-AC converters. This architecture not only reduces the carbon emission but also increases the system reliability significantly. Multicell MIMO energy router is a modular design in which a large number of cells are coupled by a single magnetic core. The conversion stages are reduced whereas the power flow control is more complicated compared to the Super-UPS with DC bus. The operation principle and the comparison of two architectures will be presented in detail in this tutorial.
The 48V architecture is now becoming the mainstream choice for powering the high current microprocessors in data centers. Meanwhile the power consumption and transient current of microprocessors is also increasing with the improvement of performance. The 48-V VRM aims to address the challenge of very high voltage conversion ratio for high performance microprocessors. A family of hybrid switched-capacitor topologies leveraging the low voltage device, the high energy density of capacitor, and precise regulation of inductor will be introduced. The magnetic design and fast dynamic control will also be introduced.
S05 Presenter(s)
Yenan Chen received the honors degree of engineering from the Chu Kochen College, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2010, and the bachelor’s and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, in 2010 and 2018, respectively.
From 2018 to 2021, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, NJ, USA. Since December 2021, he has been a Principal Investigator with the ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Zhejiang University. Since July 2023, he has been a ZJU100 Professor with the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University. He holds seven issued Chinese patents. His research interests include power electronic topology, architecture, and control for data centers, renewable energy, and transportation.
Dr. Chen was the recipient of two Prize Paper Awards of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics in 2021 and 2022, the IEEE COMPEL Best Paper Award in 2020, the IEEE APEC Outstanding Presentation Award in 2019, and the First Place Award from the Innovation Forum of Princeton University in 2019.
Dehong Xu (Fellow, IEEE) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 1983, 1986, and 1989, respectively.
Since 1996, he has been with the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, as a Full Professor. From June 1995 to May 1996, he was a Visiting Scholar with the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. From June to December 2000, he was a Visiting Professor with the Center for Power Electronics Systems, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. From February to April 2006, he was a Visiting Professor with the ETH, Switzerland. He is interested in power electronics topology, control, and applications to renewable energy and energy efficiency. He authored or co-authored ten books and more than 300 IEEE journal and conference papers. He holds more than 50 patents
Dr. Xu is the Vice-President for Membership of IEEE Power Electronics Society from 2022. He is the Co-Editor in Chief of IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics and the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He was the recipient of seven IEEE journal and conference paper awards. He became an IEEE Fellow in 2013. He was an IEEE PELS Distinguish Lecturer from 2015 to 2018. He was also the recipient of the IEEE PELS R. D. Middlebrook Achievement Award in 2016. He was the General Chair of IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE2012, Hangzhou), IEEE International Power Electronics and Applications Conference (PEAC2018, Shenzhen).
S06: Advanced Power-Electronics Control for Practicing Engineers
This tutorial provides a fundamentally different perspective to multi-scale control of switching power electronic systems along with plurality of practical experimental results and is expected to be of great interest to the power electronic system engineers, professionals, educators, and students. Many new materials are planned for this tutorial with several recent developments. The tutorial will start with basics for engineers, professionals, researchers, and students and gradually working its way through to intricacies in advanced control concepts, realizations, and practical implementations for advance control realizations on new topologies and control platforms.
The first part of the tutorial will primarily focus on switching sequence-based control for power electronics systems. By enabling integration of modulation and control, switching sequence-based control precludes the need for ad-hoc offline modulation synthesis. In other words, an optimal switching sequence for the power converter is generated dynamically without the need for prior determination of any modulation scheme (which generates a pre-determined switching sequence) in typical conventional approaches.
The tutorial will provide the mechanism to carry out switching sequence-based control and model predictive control syntheses and demonstrate the differences between the two optimal control schemes. Several device, converter, and network level implementations (e.g., microinverter, solar inverter, pulsed-power systems, microgrid, parallel inverters, multilevel converter, aircraft power system) of the switching sequence-based control will be provided encompassing author’s multiple years of project experience encompassing leading advanced defense and energy industries.
Finally, the tutorial will focus on switching transition control. The primary objective of this control is to demonstrate how key power electronic system parameters including dv/dt and di/dt stress, switching loss, and electromagnetic noise emission can be controlled dynamically by modulating the dynamics of the power semiconductor devices. Both electrical and newly developed optical control mechanisms to achieve switching transition control will be demonstrated.
This tutorial is intended for a wide spectrum of researchers, industry professionals, educators, and students reflecting the typical distribution of APEC 2024 audience. The tutorial will start with basics of modern controls outlined above, leading up to the elucidation of the novel mechanisms, followed by multiple applications to show the utility of the advanced controls and how practicing engineers and researchers can benefit of them.
S06 Presenter(s)
Dr. Sudip K. Mazumder (FIEEE, FAAAS, FAAIA) received his Ph.D. degree from Virginia Tech in 2001. He serves as a UIC Distinguished Professor1 and the Director of the Laboratory for Energy and Switching-Electronic Systems. He also serves as the President of NextWatt LLC since 2008. He has over 30 years of professional experience encompassing academia and leading industries and is a leading expert in power-electronics controls in the world. He served as a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) between 2016-2019. He is the current Editor-at-Large for IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He has received 8 IEEE Awards/Honors including 2023 IEEE PES Renewable Energy Excellence Award and IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics Prize-Paper Award in 2022 and 2002. He is the recipient of UIC’s highest awards: Distinguished Researcher of the Year (2020), Inventor of the Year (2014), University Scholar (2013). Currently, he is also a PELS AdCoM Member and Member at Large.
Dr. Debanjan Chatterjee is with ABB US Corporate Research Center (USCRC), Raleigh, in June 2021, where he is employed as a Research Scientist. At USCRC, he is working on solid state circuit breakers and power converters for a variety of industry applications, including firmware development, gate driver design, and EMI/EMC analysis. His research interests encompass model predictive, switching sequence and switching transition controllers for wideband gap power electronic systems. He is a reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics and serves as a technical committee member for top IEEE conferences.
S07: DC Fault Protection: Current Status, Fundamental Challenges, and Future Outlook
DC power is attractive for electric vessels. However, DC circuit breakers (DCCBs) must be provided for LVDC (<1kV), MVDC (<40kV), and HVDC (100’s kV power systems. A wide range of DCCB technologies have been investigated for different applications.
Presently, solid-state circuit breakers (SSCBs) can quickly interrupt a DC fault current within tens of microseconds but suffer from high conduction losses and weight and cost penalties associated with the cooling and semiconductor components, especially for high power applications. The most distinct advantage of semiconductor switches is their capability of switching current during fault interruption while the most distinct disadvantage is their nonnegligible on-resistance when conducting current. Unfortunately, they are used in SSCBs in the worst way possible—continuously dissipating power except during infrequent fault interruption. Numerous hybrid circuit breaker (HCB) schemes have been proposed to offer an on-state resistance 2-3 orders of magnitude lower than that of SSCBs. All the HCBs are of parallel type, in which an electronic path is in parallel with a main mechanical switch. The fault current in the mechanical switch is initially commutated to the electronic path to create artificial current zero crossings in various forms to aid the opening of the mechanical switch. The electronic path will then be interrupted with varistors (MOV) clamping the transient voltage surge and absorbing the residual electromagnetic energy. However, these HCB solutions offer only a moderate fault response time of several milliseconds. This may be too slow to limit the fast-rising fault current in low-impedance DC power networks. The most distinct disadvantage of all the HCBs is the relatively long opening time of the mechanical switch to achieve a sufficiently wide gap for sustaining the DC voltage, during which the fault current continues to rise through the electronic path.
This two-hour tutorial will provide a review and performance comparison on the state-of-the-art DCCB solutions in a systematic way. It will cover several case studies of various types of DC circuit breakers. This talk will also highlight the fundamental challenges faced by the DCCB technologies and shed some light on future research directions.
S07 Presenter(s)
Dr. John Shen is a professor and director of the School of Mechatronics at Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada. He was Grainger Chair Professor of Electrical and Power Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology between 2013 and 2021. He has more than 30 years of industrial, academic, and entrepreneurial experience in power electronics and power semiconductor devices with around 350 publications and 18 issued U.S. patents in these areas. He has been involved in circuit breaker research since 2013 and is an inventor of several patents and an author of over 30 publications on the subject. He served as PI of an ARPA-E CIRCUITS project on low-voltage solid-state circuit breakers, co-PI on an ARPA-E BREAKERS project on MVDC hybrid circuit breakers, and PI on an ARPA-E CABLES project on MVDC superconducting momentary circuit interrupters. He recently co-edited a book on Direct Current Fault protection (Springer 2023). He is a recipient of the 2012 IEEE Region 3 Outstanding Engineer Award, the 2012 E. T. Walton Fellowship from Science Foundation of Ireland, and the 2020 Illinois Institute of Technology Senior Faculty Sigma Xi Research Award. He has served the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) in various capacities including Vice President of Products, AdCom member, Chair of Distinguished Lecturers Program, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine, Guest Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transaction on Power Electronics and the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics. He has been on the organizing or technical program committee of over 30 international conferences in the field and served as the General Chair of the 2016 Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE2016) and the 2018 International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices & IC’s (ISPSD2018). He is a Fellow of IEEE and the U.S. National Academy of Inventors.
S08: EMC Workshop for Power Supply Designers
This seminar is for the target audience of power supply designers with entry level or intermediate knowledge on EMC. The seminar includes a portable conducted emissions test setup that utilizes low voltage (<60VDC) to demonstrate fundamental EMC troubleshooting in a practical way by using a lecture style that includes first the explanation of theory, then the simulation, then a live test to prove empirically how the theory holds true on a real design. The test board separates out common mode and differential mode noise so that the exact source of the EMI can be understood more fully and therefore a better solution can be implemented. It is common to see engineers using a guess and check method by just grabbing whatever components are available nearby, testing and then deciding what the next step is based on the test results.
Although this iterative method sometimes works, as engineers, we should strive to better understand the underlying phenomena to be able to implement a more precise solution and resolve EMC issues with less time and effort. The seminar will accomplish this by focusing on practical tips and tricks.
S08 Presenter(s)
Jared Quenzer is an “Applications Engineer” at Würth Elektronik with experience designing magnetics (transformers, inductors, and common mode chokes) used primarily in switched-mode power supplies. Besides having a background in design, he also has a passion for test and measurement, especially regarding electromagnetic compatibility. He has presented at IEEE conferences regularly since 2018 at both APEC and EMC+SIPI.
His EMC career started before his magnetics career while working at Daktronics as an Electrical Engineering student while pursuing the bachelor’s degree at South Dakota State University. This included hundreds of hours in the anechoic chamber doing radiated emissions measurements and additional hundreds of hours doing signal integrity measurements using the oscilloscope.
He has worked at Würth Elektronik for over 10 years. His first six years were spent designing magnetics. The results of this labor was over 100 part numbers available for sale to the public and 1 USA patent granted.
In the last 4 years as an Applications Engineer he has been helping customers troubleshoot their EMC problems and guiding them towards a solution. He is most confident when the circles of his power electronics background and electromagnetic compatibility overlap.
S09: Three-Level Neutral-Point-Clamped Converters When Two Levels are not Enough
Nowadays, with the increasing electrification in transportation and demand on high‐efficient and reliable energy conversion from the renewable energy sources like wind and solar energy, the understanding of multi‐level topologies, which can satisfy these demands, is of a great importance to both academia researchers and industry.
This seminar will provide the participants with the knowledge of basic concepts and control design challenges for three‐level neutral point converters (NPC) in different applications. It will start with basic operating principles of the topology (NPC, T‐type and ANPC) and their control challenges such as neutral point voltage balancing and thermal stress distribution. Then, two different control approaches will be presented: carrier based PWM techniques and model predictive control techniques. For each control technique, basic concept and step‐by‐step implementation guidelines will be provided, followed by more application‐oriented examples and implementation challenges.
An approach to analyze the reliability of power electronics converters will also be introduced, which includes thermal stress modelling, lifetime prediction, and reliability evaluation. It will be demonstrated that control algorithm selection has a major impact on the reliability of semiconductor devices and DClink capacitors in NPC converters.
The seminar is intended both for academia researchers and industry, who do not have previous knowledge about the NPC topology (basic operating principles will be explained), and for those who are familiar with the topology and would like to learn more about ongoing research directions and novel control solutions.
S09 Presenter(s)
Sergio Busquets‐Monge received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in 1999 and 2006, respectively, and the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 2001.
From 2001 to 2002, he was with Crown Audio, Inc. In 2005, he was awarded an Assistant Professor position with the Electronic Engineering Department, UPC. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007. Since 2023, he is Full Professor. In 2009, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Power Electronics Systems, VPI&SU, VA, USA, and the Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark. His current research interests include modular and scalable power converter design based on multilevel neutral‐point‐clamped topologies and electric vehicles. He has published more than 100 journal and conference papers in the fields of power electronics and industrial electronics.
Ariya Sangwongwanich received the B.Eng. degree in electrical engineering from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, in 2013, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in energy engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2015 and 2018, respectively. He is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, where he is a Vice‐Leader of Photovoltaic Systems research program. His research interests include control of grid‐connected converters, photovoltaic systems, reliability in power electronics, and multi‐level converters.
He was a Visiting Researcher with RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany in 2017 and University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom in 2023. Dr. Sangwongwanich was the recipient of the Danish Academy of Natural Sciences’ Ph.D. Prize and the Spar Nord Foundation Research Award for his Ph.D. thesis in 2019.
Mateja Novak received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from Zagreb University, Croatia, in 2014 and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2020.
She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at AAU Energy, Aalborg University, Denmark.She was a visiting researcher at the Chair of Power Electronics, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany in 2018 and Danfoss Drives Intelligence, Gråsten, Denmark in 2023. Dr. Novak is the recipient of EPE Outstanding Young EPE Member Award for the year 2019 and 2nd price winner of 2021 IEEE‐IES Student and YP Competition. Her research interests include model predictive control, multilevel converters, deep learning, statistical model checking, reliability of power electronic systems and renewable energy systems.
S10: Direct to Chip (DtC) DC-DC Converters for AI Chips
High performance computing chips, as those used in AI and data centers require high performance dc-dc power converters. A first challenge is to supply low voltages 0.5-1.2V with AVS (adaptive voltage scaling), high current (up to 15,000A) and very demanding load steps (up to 5,000A/us). A second challenge is a high and variable voltage gain to generate a tight supply voltage from a 48Vdc bus. Low losses (peak efficiency >97%) and high surface current density (>1A/mm2) complete these high-performance requirements.
Proposed “SURFACE power delivery” is an extension of the “VERTICAL power delivery” trend that is replacing “LATERAL power delivery” in high current applications to reduce copper losses in the power delivery path.
Three novel concepts are described in this talk: a) “extended duty cycle” (60-95%) in both primary and secondary power switches; b) “segmented winding transformer, SWT” and c) “edge dynamics”. These three concepts are implemented in a novel “Direct Power Converter with High Voltage inside, DPx-HV”
S10 Presenter(s)
José A. Cobos is a Full Professor at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Founder of the company DPx (Differential Power S.L.). He was RCC Fellow at Harvard University and Fulbrighter at UC Berkeley.
His contributions are focused in the field of power supply systems for industrial, aerospace, telecom, automotive, renewable energy, and medical applications. His research interests include energy efficiency in digital systems and RF amplifiers, magnetic components, piezoelectric transformers, transcutaneous energy transfer and the generation of EM fields for water supercooling and biomedical applications. He advised over 40 Master Thesis, 16 Doctoral dissertations, published 300+ technical papers and hold patents co-authored with 7 companies. He conducted professional seminars and tutorials in USA, UK, Austria, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Mexico, Denmark, Macedonia, and China.
In 2006, he was the founder Director of the “Centro de Electrónica Industrial, CEI-UPM”, a University research center leading a strong industrial program in power electronics and digital systems. In 2016, he was the founder President of the “Industrial Council @ CEI” to coordinate Education & Research with Industry. In 2019, he started DPx, a startup from UPM to synthesize advanced power converters based on the “Differential Power” methodology
The author presented the following Professional Educational Seminars at APEC:
- 1997: “Modeling and Optimization of High Frequency Magnetic Components
- 2006: “keeping an eye on Digital Control”
- 2014: “Power Supply on Chip”
- 2015: “Power Supply on Chip for High Frequency Integrated Voltage Regulation”
- 2022: “VA Modeling of the Differential Power”
S11: The Complete Guide to PCB Layout for HV GaN Power Stages
Following the top-rated 2022 APEC seminar on PCB layout, this fully updated seminar covers additional topologies, and focuses more on the process of understanding where transient currents flow, and how to best route them for a wide variety of topologies and applications.
GaN transistors have an extremely high gain-bandwidth product, which can make circuit layout and routing more challenging than any other transistor technology. Whether you plan to use discrete GaN transistors with external gate drivers, or package-integrated driver+transistor, these layout and routing fundamentals apply just the same. The only difference is that the layout and routing inside the package is pre-defined for integrated GaN.
Understanding and using these techniques will help you to minimize ringing and overshoot on the Bus and gate signals, and achieve cleaner, lower noise switching. In addition, low loop-inductance generally reduces radiated EM fields, helping to improve on-board EMC issues as well as lower conducted and radiated emissions.
The main focus of this seminar is on transistors in the 650 V class, at power levels from 50 W to 20 kW. The intended audience is students and practicing power engineers working with GaN transistors.
S11 Presenter(s)
Eric Persson is a 42-year veteran of the power electronic industry. His career spans 19 years of hands-on power converter and inverter design, followed by 23 years in applications engineering in the semiconductor industry at Infineon Technologies. He is a Senior Principal Engineer specializing in wide-bandgap semiconductor circuits and applications.
Eric has presented more than 100 tutorials and papers on topics related to applications and practical design aspects of power electronic circuits. He has been a regular lecturer for power electronic short courses at UW Madison for 23 years. Mr. Persson holds 18 patents and is a recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal. He has a BSEE degree from the University of Minnesota.
S12: State Space Based Control As an Alternative to Conventional Loop Design
Due to the impressive technology improvement in semiconductor and packaging technologies, the R&D effort moves towards controller implementation. While conventional feedback control design methods in frequency domain are well mastered in industry, this seminar demonstrates a major leap forward with the use of State Space based design. This time-domain modern control is usually perceived as an advanced control or research topic due to its inherent mathematical support. This seminar has the merit of scaling down the advanced concept for making it easier for either analog or digital implementation. Compared to other design methods, the State Space based design reduces IC’s external component count, guarantees controllability, and provides an easier optimization. Instead of the conventional loop tuning, a formula calculates gains instantly. It is physically equivalent to a voltage/current cascaded control. When applied to multi-phase dc/dc converters with phase dropping, the phase dropping does not change dynamic performance for any phase count. An in-depth presentation of the method’s actual simplicity, with both digital and analog examples, opens this topic to any audience.
S12 Presenter(s)
Dorin O. Neacșu (M’95-SM’00) has received the MSc and PhD degrees in Electronics from the Technical University of Iasi, Romania, in 1988 and 1994, respectively, and a MSc degree in Engineering Management from Gordon Institute for Leadership, Tufts University, in 2005.
Dorin has been involved with TAGCM-SUT Iasi, Romania, from 1988 to 1990, and with the faculty at Department of Electronics, Technical University of Iasi, Romania, between 1990 and 1999. Following 1999, he was involved with the U.S. industry as an engineer, consultant, product manager, and project manager, and with U.S. academic activities. Since 2012, Dorin is an Associate Professor with Technical University of Iasi and was a multi-year Visiting Associate Professor with Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. Professor Dorin O. Neacșu has organized 12 professional education seminars at IEEE conferences (PELS, APEC, IECON, INTELEC, ISIE), has been awarded 4 US patents, and has provided a continuous stream of IEEE papers since 1992. He has published numerous academic manuals, including “Switching Power Converters – Medium and High Power,” “Telecom Power Systems,” “Automotive Power Systems,” all 3 book titles available at CRC Press/Taylor and Francis. He has received the 2015 “Constantin Budeanu” award of the Romanian Academy of Sciences, and the 2018 “Ad Astra” award from Romanian Researchers Association. Dorin is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Associate Editor of IEEE IES Magazine, and served as Track Chair for ISIE, OPTIM and APEC, Tutorial Chair for ECCE, Reviewer for IEEE Transactions and Conferences, Member of IEEE committees.
S13: Solid State Transformer: Topologies, Use Cases, Design Considerations, and Challenges
Solid State Transformers (SST) are highly attractive both in industry and academia as they provide interface between medium-voltage AC (or DC) grids and low-voltage AC (or DC) grids and bring the benefits of modularity, flexibility, scalability, smaller footprint, less weight, bidirectional power flow and high-power quality to the units at the grid connection. Back in the 1990s they were attractive in the industry mainly to reduce weight and volume of the AC/DC converters in the rail applications. However, the interest in SST decreased due to its complex design and lower efficiency compared to conventional transformers.
In the last two decades the increasing DC applications in the area of Electric Mobility, Renewable Energy, Smart Grids, Datacenters and DC Microgrids brought back the interest to SST systems. Various topologies and control methods were proposed, and several demonstrators have been developed since then.
In this tutorial an SST overview will be shared with the audience and design criteria will be explained.
S13 Presenter(s)
Ilknur Colak studied MSc. and PhD. in electrical engineering program in Istanbul Technical University, in Türkiye. In the last 22 years she worked in industry and research centers such as CERN, ABB, Ansaldo Richerche, MR, and TUBITAK. Since January 2022, Colak is working at Schneider Electric- Secure Power as Technical Director. Colak is the owner of many patents and publications. Her research area includes modular and multilevel high-power converters, power conversion systems for Medium Voltage and Low Voltage applications, insulation-coordination, EMC and grounding, and reliability.
S14: EMI/EMC Debugging with Oscilloscopes
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) debugging in electronics including localizing intermittent failures can be frustrating without an appropriate strategy.
This seminar covers the fundamentals of practical EMI/EMC design and troubleshooting of electronic circuits, using state-of-the-art scopes to analyze your circuits in both time and frequency domains.
The use of voltage, current, and near-field probes, Line Impedance Stabilization Network (LISN), and antennas will be reviewed combined with some tips for best practice with state-of-the-art oscilloscopes.
A practical demo using a product including a DC/DC converter and digital electronics will be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques.
Because of the practical orientation, the seminar will be interesting for electronic designers, especially for power electronic engineers who need to solve EMI/EMC problems every day in their labs to comply with Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) regulations.
This seminar covers the fundamentals for troubleshooting an electronic design with electromagnetic interferences (EMI), or Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) problems using state of the art oscilloscopes. Attendees will discover how to localize, characterize, and solve radiated and conducted emission problems in a very understandable and practical style.
The seminar will use an electronic prototype for a product failing conducted and radiated emissions as a guiding thread for the explanations trying to make changes in the design until the requirements of the regulations are met. Workshop attendees can see the development of the experiments thanks to a camera and oscilloscope connected to the instructor’s computer.
S14 Presenter(s)
Arturo Mediano is the founder of The HF-Magic Lab®, a specialized laboratory for design, diagnostic, troubleshooting, and training in the EMI/EMC, Signal Integrity, and RF fields at I3A (University of Zaragoza). He received his M.Sc. (1990) and his Ph. D. (1997) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Zaragoza (Spain), where he has held a teaching professorship since 1992. For more than 30 years he has been involved in R&D projects with many companies in the EMI/EMC, SIPI and RF fields for communications, industry, medical, and scientific applications. He regularly shares his knowledge and expertise with students and engineers in teaching courses and seminars worldwide.
S15: PV Inverter Design – Topologies, Control and System Considerations
The proliferation of renewable energy in all parts of the modern grid has led to a tremendous growth in the power electronics related content and activities in the recent years. While many of the topologies used for PV inverters have a lot in common with the traditional ac-dc or dc-dc power conversion, there are many unique aspects of the PV inverter design that mainstream power converter designers are less familiar with.
The motivation for this seminar is to demystify the design aspects of the PV inverters in a structured manner. A brief inverter architecture overview kicks off the seminar, followed by introduction to PV panel electrical characteristics. Next, each stage of the PV inverter is fully explained in terms of system requirements, power stage implementations and control methodology – power pole concept and cycle-by-cycle averaging (CCA) are employed to simplify and standardize the operating modes analysis. Specific requirements pertinent to the PV inverter design such as MPPT, grid synchronization and islanding detection are addressed. Finally, advanced topics, including 3-phase inverter design and grid-forming inverters are covered in detail.
S15 Presenter(s)
Arnab Acharya is a power electronics enthusiast with 2 years of experience with Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India, Bengaluru. He also has an internship experience with National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Colorado. Arnab received his master’s in electrical engineering (MS) from IIT Kharagpur with a specialization in power electronics. He has been actively publishing articles and presenting his research in top IEEE conferences. He has won the best presentation award in APEC 2019, Anaheim, CA. Arnab is currently pursuing his doctoral studies on Grid Forming inverters and renewable grid integration at Arizona State University. He has been an active member of professional bodies like IEEE PES and PELS societies.
Dhaval Dalal is a power electronics professional with 35+ years of experience in the power conversion industry. Dhaval has worked for computer OEM (Digital), Corporate Research Laboratories (Philips), Power IC Semiconductor (Unitrode/TI, onsemi) and
Power Discrete Semiconductor (onsemi) companies in various technology and marketing leadership roles. He has also spent many years as an industry consultant (ACP Technologies, current) supporting a diverse set of technology and marketing initiatives. Dhaval has published and presented 50+ articles/presentations and has also presented 3 prior APEC Professional Education Seminars (individually or jointly). Dhaval received his B.Tech.(EE) from IIT Bombay, MSEE from Virginia Tech and MS-MOT from Walden University. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Renewable Energy from Arizona State University. Dhaval is an active member of PSMA (co-chair PTR committee, ex-BOD) and has volunteered as APEC IS co-chair since 2021.
Raja Ayyanar is a Professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at the Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. His current research interests and expertise are at the intersection of power electronics and power systems. At ASU, he leads several research projects on distributed renewable resources and electric vehicle power electronics. He received an M.Sc. degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (Bangalore), and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.
S16: Technologies for Achieving Ultra-High Efficiency and Ultra-High Power Density DC-DC Power Converters
This seminar discusses the challenges in achieving ultra-high efficiency, such as 99%, and ultra-high power density, such as 2kW/in3. Most of the seminar focuses on 48V to 12V converters although the concepts are broadly applicable for a wide range of voltage levels. After a review of the fundamental sources of losses in DC-DC converters and how to minimize them, the seminar provides in-depth evaluation on the most efficient and high-density topologies presented in literature thus far. The key concepts for achieving higher than 99% efficiency at a power density of more than 2kW/in3 are: easily paralleled “modular” designs for lower conduction loss, multi-level structures for lower voltage stress, low switching frequency for lower switching losses, full duty ratio operation for maximum utilization of power switches, and new circuit topologies for significant reduction of the size for inductors. At the end, the seminar will propose and discuss a new power architecture for 48V to 0.7V (down to 0.3V), 2,000A (or higher), application that will achieve extremely high efficiency (40V-0.7V), extremely small size, and current sharing, expandable, fast dynamic response, etc.
S16 Presenter(s)
Dr. Yan-Fei Liu (Fellow of IEEE, 2013, Fellow of CAE, 2018) received his bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering from Zhejiang University, China, in 1984 and 1987, and PhD degree from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada, in 1994. He was a Technical Advisor with the Advanced Power System Division, Nortel Networks, in Ottawa, Canada from 1994 to 1999. Since 1999, he has been at Queen’s University, where he is currently a Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has authored 297 technical papers in the IEEE Transactions and conferences and holds 70 U.S. patents. He has written a book titled “High Frequency MOSFET Gate Drivers: Technologies and Applications,” published by IET. He is also a Principal Contributor for two IEEE standards. He received “Modeling and Control Achievement Award” from IEEE Power Electronics Society in 2017. He received Premier’s Research Excellence Award in 2000 in Ontario, Canada. He also received the Award of Excellence in Technology from Nortel in 1997.
Currently, Dr. Liu serves as the chair of the IEEE Medal in Power Engineering Committee. He serves as an Editor of IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics of Power Electronics (IEEE JESTPE) since 2013. He was the Vice President of Technical Operations of IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS, from 2017 to 2020). He was the general chair of ECCE 2019.
Dr. Don Tan is with NGSS, where he served up to executive level as Distinguished Engineer, Fellow, Chief Engineer-Power Conversion, program manager, department manager, and center director (acting). Don earned his PhD from Caltech and is an IEEE fellow. Well-recognized as a visionary leader in ultra-efficient power conversion and electronic energy systems, he has pioneered breakthrough innovations with high-impact industry firsts and record performances that “significantly enhance our national security.” Recently deployed James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), winner of Time magazine’s Invention of the Year Award in 2022 and the Robert J. Collier Trophy in 2023 (The trophy recognizes the greatest achievement in aerospace and astronautics in America), represents human’s most power telescope for a historical mission. His suite of the world-class electronics performed flawlessly for JWST on orbit with record-breaking performances.
Dr. Tan has received 60+ awards/recognitions and delivered 70+ keynotes/invited presentations across the globe. He is, among others, Chair, IEEE Fellow Committee, IEEE Board of Directors and immediate past Steering Committee Chair, IEEE PELS/PES eGrid. He was Director, IEEE Board of Directors, PELS Long Range Planning Committee Chair, Nomination Committee Chair, PELS President, Editor-in-Chief (Founding) for IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, General Conference Chair for APEC, Vice President-Operations, Guest Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Fellow Committee, Vice President-Meetings, IEEE Chair for IEEE/Google Little Box Challenge (awarded $1M cash prize), and IEEE/DoD Working Group Chair, developed IEEE/ANSI stds 1515/1573. He serves on many national/international award/review/selection committees.
S17: High-Power GaN Devices and Applications
GaN devices enable smaller, lighter, and more efficient power systems. GaN has not only entered low-power applications, such as cellphone and laptop chargers, but is also being used and evaluated for several other, high-power applications, including power supplies, data centers, energy harvesting, on-board chargers, and motor drives. In this seminar, we describe the latest high-power GaN technologies and discuss the opportunities for high-power applications. The first part focuses on devices: we compare e-mode and cascode architectures and discuss strategies to achieve high current (up to 150 A for a single chip) and high voltage rating (up to 1200 V). We analyze switching transients and discuss good practices to drive GaN devices fast and reliably. You will learn about GaN reliability, including qualification standards, lifetime tests, and short-circuit capability. The second part focuses on applications: we review high-power hard-switching and soft-switching topologies and provide design recommendations to make the most out of high-power GaN devices. The seminar concludes with a discussion on market challenges and opportunities for GaN adoption in high-power applications.
S17 Presenter(s)
Davide Bisi, PhD is a Senior Member of Technical Staff with Transphorm Inc. He is leading multiple R&D projects on advanced GaN materials and devices. He has more than 10 years of experience in GaN. In 2015, he received a PhD degree from the University of Padova, Italy, where he conducted highly cited research on the dynamic properties of GaN devices. After his degree, he visited the University of California, Santa Barbara, further expanding his expertise on GaN device physics.
Davide joined Transphorm in 2016, accelerating the development of highly performant and reliable GaN devices and their adoption into successful applications. With Transphorm, Davide demonstrated short-circuit capability for GaN power devices.
Dr. Bisi has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and has been awarded 4 Best Paper Awards and 6 Patents. He has given several guest lectures at prestigious universities, including UCSB, University of Bologna, University of Modena and University of Cagliari, Italy. He is currently the vice-chair of the GaN technical committee for the IEEE IRPS Conference.
Philip Zuk leads Transphorm’s global marketing and business development efforts for the company’s GaN power semiconductor technology. Previously, he oversaw business development for Vishay Siliconix’s superjunction technology and Microsemi’s MOSFETs, FRED diodes, IGBTs, and SiC technologies. He also held marketing and engineering roles at Medallion Instrumentation Systems and Fairchild Semiconductor.
Philip draws on expertise in high power semiconductor devices, power supply systems and applications, microcontroller-based systems, RFID, and project management.
He holds an MBA (Hons) from I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba; a BSc in Electrical Engineering, University of Manitoba; and an Associate Degree in Electronic Engineering Technology, Red River College. He also holds two US patents as well as a trade secret and has authored many technical and application papers.
Tushar Dhayagude is the VP of Field Applications and Technical Sales at Transphorm Inc. Prior to joining Transphorm, he was the CEO of GV Semiconductor Inc. from 2016 to 2020 where he focused on developing GaN-on-Silicon power HEMTs, controllers and power systems. He previously worked as the Marketing Director of Atmel’s digital power and LED lighting segments for six years.
In 2006, he co-founded and worked as VP of Sales and Marketing for mSilica, a mixed-signal IC company developing LED drivers for LCD-TV and notebook backlighting. He held marketing management positions at National Semiconductor and Maxim as well as semiconductor fab process and device integration engineering roles at National Semiconductor and IDT. Tushar holds 10 patents as well as an MBA & MEM from Northwestern University and MSEE from University of Arkansas.
S18: Practical Implementation of Mixed-Signal Controllers for Conventional and Emerging High-Frequency DC-DC SMPS
The seminar will cover the design and implementation of digital and mixed-signal controllers for HF dc-dc SMPS, processing power from a fraction to few hundred watts and operating at switching frequencies up to tens of MHz. The SMPS of interest form power management systems (PoMS) of virtually all electronic devices today, including space and cost constrained applications.
The targeted audience are engineers with power electronics and control background. It is expected that both novice in the area and those with years of experience will benefit from the seminar.
The seminar will start with a concise review of modern PoMS, looking at conventional and emerging converter topologies, the roles and requirements of controllers, and at control methods. Benefits and challenges associated with digital and mixed-signal control will also be addressed.
Then, an in-depth coverage of design and implementation of fully-digital voltage and current-programmed mode controllers, as well as of mixed-signal solutions, for conventional, i.e. 2-level buck and boost topologies will be given. Also, high-performance controllers will be presented.
Next, we will look at new challenges of controlling emerging flying capacitor topologies (multi-level and series capacitor converters) and show solutions for the same, utilizing design principles previously shown, in the in-depth analysis.
S18 Presenter(s)
Aleksandar Prodić (S’00–M’03) received the Dipl.Ing. degree from the University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia, in 1994, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA, in 2000 and 2003, respectively. He is currently a full professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, where he formed the Laboratory for Power Management and Integrated Switched-Mode Power Supplies in 2004.
He has authored or coauthored more than 100 journals and conference publications. He also has a number of inventions that have become commercial products. His current research interests include low-to-medium power converter topologies, mixed-signal control of low-power high-frequency switch-mode power supplies, and mixed-signal IC design for power electronics.
Prof. Prodić was a recipient of the IEEE Power Electronics Transactions Article Award, several conference article awards, and two Inventor of the Year Awards from the University of Toronto in 2012 and 2014.
He is most proud of three Excellence in Teaching Awards, elected and given by the University of Toronto undergraduate students.