APEC Preview: Companies Gear up to Showcase Power Electronics

One of the biggest events in the power electronics industry is coming up, running from March 19 to March 23 in Orlando, Florida, and EE Power will be there.

 

APEC features semiconductors, power supplies, motor drives, design/test equipment, computer processors, and other components. Image used courtesy of Adobe Stock

 

The 38th annual Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) will include more than 270 exhibitors, around 500 technical and industry lectures, nearly a dozen plenary sessions, several panel discussions, and over 200 technical dialogue sessions featuring peer-reviewed papers.

Last year’s event attracted nearly 200 exhibiting companies and a turnout of 3,004 attendees across 38 countries, including engineers, students and professors, corporate executives, administrators, and other professionals. APEC features semiconductors, power supplies, equipment containing power electronics, motor drives, design/test equipment, computer processors, and other components.

This year’s exhibitor floor plan is peppered with some of the largest industry players selling semiconductors and other power electronics products, such as converters, motor drives, and uninterruptible power supply units. 

Below, EE Power will preview what a handful of exhibitors plan to offer at APEC 2023.

 

GaN Systems

At booth 822, Canada-based GaN Systems will showcase its flagship gallium nitride (GaN) transistors. On APEC’s website, the company touts its “island technology” concept, focused on reducing the size and cost of GaN devices while transferring more current with on-chip metal.

According to its website, GaN Systems will lead three presentations covering GaN technologies’ role in advancing wireless power, transistors for next-generation power supply units, and high-efficiency and high-power density GaN-based onboard chargers.

GaN Systems has among the largest portfolios of transistors, serving consumer electronics, data center servers and power supplies, renewable energy systems, industrial motors, and automotive transistors. The company recently announced it would be acquired by German semiconductor giant Infineon for $830 million.

 

Navitas

California-based Navitas Semiconductor will claim booth 516 at APEC 2023, showcasing products for electrified housing, industrial, and transportation applications. The publicly traded company specializes in GaN power ICs and silicon carbide (SiC) products, with a market cap of nearly $1 billion. It’s no stranger to APEC, initially debuting its flagship GaNFast power ICs at the 2016 conference.

Navitas will feature a range of products, from home appliance motors and compressors to electric vehicle charging systems, solar and microgrid installations, and power systems for data centers. The company will highlight these examples in the context of achieving increased portability, longer range, faster charging, and other advantages, along with GaN and SiC’s role in reducing carbon emissions.

 

Texas Instruments, ROHM Semiconductor, and other major power electronics players demoed their products at APEC 2022 in Houston, Texas. Image used courtesy of APEC

 

Dan Kinzer, Navitas’ chief technology officer and chief operating officer, touted the company’s GaNFast and GeneSiC portfolios, offering application-specific design support and benefits in sustainable performance.

Per its website, Navitas’ representatives will present in several industry sessions, discussing trends in current sensing, the sustainability benefits of GaNFast power ICs, integrated wide-bandgap semiconductors for reducing part count and improving power density, and other topics. The company will also present a technical session on its ultra-high efficiency, high-power density 140-watt AC-DC adapter using GaN power ICs. The company’s staff will demonstrate how its new GaNSense half-bridge IC advances high-frequency, high-efficiency, and high-density topologies.

Jobseekers can meet with Navitas’ human resources representatives at a student career fair on March 21.

 

Power Integrations

According to its APEC exhibitor profile, California-based Power Integrations will feature semiconductor ICs for renewable energy systems and other applications at booth 708. The publicly traded company specializes in high-voltage power conversion technologies, with a market cap of $4.7 billion.

According to its website, Power Integrations will highlight the latest products in AC-DC conversion (including its InnoSwitch and LinkSwitch IC lines), its SCALE series gate drivers, its BridgeSwitch motor driver, and automotive products such as the InnoSwitch3-AQ, LinkSwitch-TN2Q, and Qspeed AQ diodes. The company will also showcase its PowiGaN switches, InnoSwitch 4-CZ and ClampZero chipset, MinE-CAP, and other products.

Power Integrations’ technical staff will present ten industry sessions covering topics like fault analysis and predictive maintenance for BLDC motors, sensorless control methods, and the effect of power factor correction in optimizing efficiency and regulation in an LLC resonant SMPS.

 

Attendees and exhibitors gather at APEC 2019 in Anaheim, California. Image used courtesy of APEC

 

Innoscience

At booth 310, China-based Innoscience Technology Co. will showcase its GaN power devices across automotive, data center, and consumer electronics applications. The company manufactures GaN-based integrated devices, claiming on its website that it owns the world’s largest dedicated manufacturing capacity of 8-inch GaN-on-Si wafers. 

In a press release, Innoscience outlined plans to demo several products and use cases at APEC 2023. In the automotive category, this includes LIDAR systems with its 100-volt InnoGaN, compact converters for in-car chargers, a three-phase motor drive power stage where three half-bridge GaN devices can replace nine silicon parts, and a GaN solution for a class D audio amplifier. In its data center segment, the company will present solutions for each power conversion stage. 

Innoscience will highlight devices for everyday life, including a 3-kilowatt outdoor storage power supply that reduces the size of portable batteries, a 200-watt LED driver that’s smaller and more efficient than its silicon counterpart, and a 300-watt audio system demo with higher energy efficiency. The company will present a few use cases, including how its bidirectional GaN device can replace two silicon MOSFETs in mobile phones from Oppo and RealMe, enabling a 50% smaller size and more efficiency than silicon-based alternatives. It will also show how its InnoGaN product improves the efficiency of Yadea’s e-scooter chargers. 

Innoscience staff will present three talks covering high-performance GaN switches for LV and HV applications, integrated GaN solutions for LV applications, and a GaN bidirectional converter for mild hybrid electric vehicles.