A Grand Showcase for Power Electronics

­We’re here. The lavish gala we’ve all been waiting for. The Super Bowl of our industry. The most important event of the year.

For us, the Applied Power Electronics Conference is more than just a trade show, an exhibition for all things power and power-adjacent. It’s the totality of everything we represent as a publication. The alpha and omega of power supplies, power conversion, power semiconductors, and everything central and peripheral to electrical energy.

So one of the worst tangential consequences of COVID-19 was the temporary cessation of a live APEC. And no one’s more pleased than we are to see it back to full strength, a second in-person jaunt since the global pandemic halted everything (to say nothing of the obvious human cost).

For my own part, this will be the first time I’ve flown anywhere since before COVID.

Meanwhile, attendees will be saturated with all manner of wide band-gap semiconductors – a ubiquitous topic that doubles as March’s “Special Report.”

Two of those features, from Qorvo and EPC, respectively, cover both the silicon carbide and gallium nitride ends of the wide band-gap spectrum.

Qorvo’s Mike Zhu discusses how a SiC FET – a normally-off, cascode combination of a SiC JFET and Si-MOSFET – can exacerbate the normally complex PCB design considerations.

While the “ultra-fast voltage and current edge rates” of SiC FETs is certainly advantageous, it introduces challenges – specifically, the interaction of fast dV/dt and di/dt with parasitic circuit capacitances and inductances.

“Values that would produce negligible effects with slower-switching IGBTs or even Si-MOSFETs can result in induced currents and voltages that can at best cause chaotic operation and at worst device failure,” Mike says.

Incidentally, Mike recently joined us for a PSDwebinar to cover a “Designer's Guide to Using SiC FETs from UnitedSiC,” highly recommended.

For the GaN side of the house, EPC’s Michael de Rooij details the “GaN-Based Design of a 2 kW 48 V/12 V Bi-Directional Power Module for 48 V Mild Hybrid Electric Vehicles,” 48 V batteries having become vital for electrified vehicles sporting an internal combustion engine.

Indeed, as Michael points out, “by 2025, one of every 10 vehicles sold worldwide is projected to be a 48 V mild hybrid. 48 V systems boost fuel efficiency, deliver four times the power without increasing engine size, and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions without increasing system costs.”

So until pure electric vehicles dominate the roads, a 48 V mild hybrid design like this will be as familiar as road rage.

Best Regards,

Jason Lomberg

North American Editor, PSD