Power Conference Addresses A Wide Range of Design Issues

The upcoming Power Electronics Technology Exhibition & Conference aims to bring designers up to speed on the latest advances in power system design, presenting courses, seminars, and technical papers on the latest design techniques and component technologies. This year’s conference, which will be held October 30-November 1 in Dallas, will include talks on timely issues such as energy efficiency, environmental regulations, and digital power design. Furthermore, the conference will include new sessions devoted to power design issues that arise in emerging and popular applications.

Keynote Talk

On Tuesday, Oct. 30, Roger Tipley, senior technologist/engineering strategist with HP and a board member of The Green Grid, will present his keynote address on “Opportunities for Energy-Efficiency Innovation in the Power Electronics Industry.” Tipley will provide an overview of The Green Grid, a global consortium of companies dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and computing ecosystems. Attendees will hear about opportunities to improve efficiency throughout the “supply chain of energy.”

Immediately following the keynote, Power Electronics Technology editors will present the magazine’s Lifetime Achievement award, which is given to an individual for lifelong contributions to the technology and/or business of power electronics. This year’s award winner, who will be announced in the September issue of Power Electronics Technology, is being honored for his extensive record of innovation in magnetic design and for championing power electronics education.

Editors will also bestow Power Electronics Technology’s annual Product of the Year award to one company. This distinction recognizes a single outstanding product that has significantly advanced the state of the power electronics art.

On Wednesday, Oct. 31, Thomas Valliere, vice president and cofounder of Design Chain Associates, will present the General Session talk. In “Update on China RoHS,” Valliere will compare and contrast the European Union’s RoHS directives with those of China’s.

Professional advancement courses

The conference kicks off on Sunday, Oct. 28, with a two-day educational program offering engineers a variety of full-day or half-day professional advancement courses (PACs) focused on specific aspects of power electronics design. These courses provide intense training in numerous topics such as control techniques for power supplies and motor drives, power device selection, magnetics design and thermal management.

Other PAC topics include modeling/simulation, pc-board layout and design for reliability. Power-supply designers contemplating a move to digital control may want to attend the session on digital power conversion (PAC06), while those interested in low-power applications may find the new session on energy harvesting (PAC 11) to be beneficial.

Seminars and Technical Sessions

On Tuesday, Oct. 30, three days of technical sessions and seminars begin. The schedule for this year’s technical sessions and seminars has been completely reformatted for the convenience of attendees. The schedule is now organized along five tracks: Design Techniques I and II, Components, New Applications, and Innovative Applications. This track-based schedule helps attendees to participate in more of the sessions that interest them by avoiding scheduling conflicts for papers in related subject areas.

The track on New Applications features first-time sessions on topics such as emerging applications, power management for alternative energy, supercapacitors/ultracapacitors and LED lighting. Although only one session bears the title “emerging,” this label truly applies to all of the sessions in this track with its numerous papers discussing power conversion requirements, component technologies and design methods for powering new applications.

Meanwhile, the track on Innovative Applications presents papers in two established but growing application areas — Medical Power Supplies and Automotive Applications. Because of the highly competitive nature of these applications, power system design information can be difficult to come by, making the papers in these sessions all the more compelling. This track also hosts a session on Market Trends, which presents data on application-related trends that are shaping power component and power system development.

In parallel with the application tracks are the two tracks on Design Techniques and Components. These tracks address traditional topics such as control techniques, circuits, system architectures, simulation and motor drives, with numerous papers discussing advances in these areas. A highlight of Design Techniques I is the very timely session on digital power conversion, while those who attend Design Techniques II get a double dose of magnetics with two paper sessions devoted to magnetics design.

Those looking for compelling advances in component technology may be drawn to the Components track with its papers on power semiconductors and sessions devoted to thermal management design, power modules and portable power management. For more details on the conference program see http://home.powerelectronics.com/PowerSystemsWorld07

Running in parallel with the conference is the Power Electronics Technology exhibition, which provides a forum for vendors to present their latest power product offerings. Highlights of this exhibition will be discussed in an upcoming issue of the PETech Times newsletter.