Stephen Las Marias, Editor of EE Times Asia/India, EDN Asia

Welcome and Opening

STMicroelectronics

Collins Wu

Regional Vice President, Power & Discrete Marketing APeC Region

Wide Bandgap (WBG) semiconductors are revolutionizing industries by enabling energy-efficient solutions critical for reducing global carbon emissions. As the electric power, transportation, and communications sectors—which account for a significant portion of emissions—seek sustainable practices, WBG technologies like SiC MOSFETs and GaN HEMTs are becoming increasingly vital. Companies such as ST are at the forefront, leveraging these materials to offer superior performance in green energy generation, fast DC charging for e-mobility, and high-efficiency power electronics for telecom and data centers. Driven by megatrends such as the surge in electric vehicles, the transition to renewable energy, and the demand for advanced power supplies, WBG semiconductors present unparalleled opportunities for innovation. ST's focus on WBG technologies exemplifies the industry's commitment to system integration, thermal management, and reliability, key to powering a carbon-neutral future and fostering market growth in high-performance industrial and automotive solutions.

Efficient Power Conversion (EPC)

Alex Lidow

CEO & Co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion

As we push towards a future where robots navigate and operate independently, gallium nitride (GaN) emerges as a transformative technology, offering excellent advantages for the motor drive systems that control the various joints in untethered robots, from fingers to hips to ankles, regardless of power level and size. By harnessing GaN's exceptional properties such as high switching frequency, low switching losses, excellent thermal performance, and small size, robotic motor drives can achieve better efficiency, improved precision, and reduced size and weight. In this keynote talk we will break down the various physical parts of a humanoid robot and show why GaN is the obvious power device for these specialized motor drives.

Texas Instruments

Bosheng Sun

Systems engineer

Novel control algorithms are proposed in this paper for a high-performance AC-DC power supply design: An AC cycle skipping algorithm along with PWM soft start after AC zero-crossing, oversampling, and a method to eliminate the voltage loop double line frequency ripple are introduced to reduce iTHD and meet the strictest iTHD spec. A relay and PFC control algorithm is proposed to handle the re-rush current when AC comes back from dropout event. A baby boost converter is added between PFC and DC/DC to reduce bulk Cap and maintain hold up time. An e-meter function is integrated in the PFC code, using a single current sensor and a single MCU for both e-meter and PFC control, eliminating the traditional dedicated metering device, achieved <0.5% accuracy. These algorithms are implemented in a 3KW totem-pole bridgeless PFC design, with excellent test results.

onsemi

Dr. Mrinal K. Das

Senior Director of Technical Marketing

The on-going automotive market Electrification revolution is pushing to increase power and efficiency to enable extra miles and performances at lower cost. The higher maturity of the wide bandgap technology and increased performances of the SiC device are boosting the adoption of onsemi EliteSiC components by the EV market disruptors and incumbent OEMs and Tiers1 in the inverter application and accelerating the migration to the 800V bus architecture. In this scenario, there is a clear run to secure long term supply chain capacity and high quality SiC substrate. Economy of scale is driving effort to develop and offer larger-diameter single-crystal wafers, improving defectivity and screening methodology to improve the yield. All of them are viable approaches to optimize cost of material while increasing performance and provide a solution to the huge growth of market demand for these power devices.

Infineon Technologies Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd

Dr. Kwok Wai Ma

Senior Principal Engineer, Industrial and Consumer Power, Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific

Mastering all three key materials of Si, SiC and GaN in modern power conversion is key for a green future. Each technology will have its best-fit applications and continue to grow and at different rates. Si-based solution will be complemented by corresponding wide bandgap solution at all voltage classes. SiC penetration is already manifested in many industrial applications. Trench SiC technology enable devices with IGBT-like robustness while boosting efficiency. Package innovation by diffusion soldering improve device thermal performance, while top-side cooling SMD simplifies assembly and improve thermal and electrical performances. New gate driving techniques reduce diode reverse recovery loss and extend MOSFET short-circuit withstanding time. High-voltage SiC MOSFET simplifies topology in systems with higher power and higher system voltages like solar and traction. GaN is the preferred technology in high-density charger and server application. In near future, more GaN device will be offered in integrated form.

Texas Instruments

Sasikala Thangam

Applications Engineer

Identifying and protecting short circuit (SC)/over current (OC) scenarios are critical for high power systems like HEV-EV traction inverters, EV charging and solar inverters system. In high power systems, SiC FETs or IGBTs are generally used depending upon the power level and switching frequency. This presentation will discuss the key considerations and design approaches to implement the right protection circuit based on SiC FETs and IGBTs. It will walk through the timings involved from detecting the SC/OC event to safe shut-down, the circuit implementation criteria and experiment data for both IGBT and SiC FETs.

ST, onsemi, EPC

Wide-bandgap (WBG) devices, in particular gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC), have been seeing increasing adoption over the past few years, especially as manufacturers put power efficiency on top of their agenda amid the increasing trend towards decarbonization, in line with the global “net zero” goal. As electronics and semiconductor technologies advance, businesses are creating a wide range of products that offer advantages in a number of applications for the industrial, automotive, and consumer industries, among others. Our panel discussion will focus on the challenges that designers currently face, the obstacles that still need to be removed for widespread adoption of WBG devices, the latest innovations that are fueling further growth of the GaN and SiC market, and the future of the WBG industry.

Stephen Las Marias, Editor of EE Times Asia/India, EDN Asia

Welcome and Opening

onsemi

Simon Keeton

Group President, Power Solutions Group

Renewable and sustainable energy sources are at the heart of our planet's future climate. To unleash full potential of sustainable energy sources, efficient energy harvesting, and grid integration are two key enablers. They ensure maximum energy extraction and optimum utilization of renewable energy sources. These factors are critical in minimizing power conversion losses, enhancing energy distribution, and ensuring that sustainable energy sources are as reliable, powerful, and cost-competitive as traditional ones. Silicon Carbide (SiC) solutions, backed by vertical integration, emerge as a clear solution for the key requirements of Sustainable energy generation and consumption. Silicon Carbide revolutionizes green energy systems with improved efficiency and resilience. Furthermore, end-to-end vertical integration is essential to ensure the availability of high-quality products that allow for full system design flexibility.

UTAC Group

Michael (Hyung Mook) Choi

Vice president of Power business

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) operations has intensified the demand for efficient and high-speed computational hardware. As a result, power semiconductor package solutions have evolved to enhance efficiency and power density. Here’s a look at the recent developments in semiconductor packaging technologies.

Texas Instruments

Deric Waters

Systems Engineer (DMTS)

The USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) specification has continued to evolve over the past 2 years along with the USB-C eco-system. This presentation will cover recent changes that impact single and multi-port power supply designs. Up until now USB-PD chargers operating in the Standard Power Range (SPR) could use relatively simple voltage control methods since there were only 4 required voltages. New changes in the upcoming Rev 3.2 will require at least 62 unique voltage steps for USB-PD chargers above 27W. This presentation will cover the purpose of this requirement (to create a universal charger eco-system) as well as details of the requirement, and the implications for power supply design.

Rohde & Schwarz

Nicholas Le Bas

Oscilloscope Product Manager and Application Engineer

As applications become increasingly electrified and automated, power consumption and efficiency grow increasingly important in reducing overall power consumption to a minimum. In this presentation we will give an overview what to keep in mind when designing your test bench for testing faster switching semiconductors made of SiC and GaN.

Qorvo

Mike Zhu

Qorvo sr. product Apps Engineer

Qorvo SiC FET addresses the dominant loss components (conduction loss and turn-off switching loss) of ZVS soft switching applications at the same time. It also provides advantages of low gate drive loss, low time related output capacitance, low body diode voltage drop, etc. thanks to its unique device structure (cascode). This talk provides detailed explanation of advantageous device structure and reasoning for superior performance over Si Superjunction and SiC MOSFET. A simulation benchmark of a 50kW phase-shifted full-bridge shows that Qorvo SiC FET based E1B half-bridge module provides a 74% reduction in turn-off loss and 10% lower junction temperature at full load over a comparable SiC MOSFET based E1B half-bridge module.

Arrow Electronics

Jason Khor

Senior Manager, Engineering, Arrow Electronics

Innovators continue to push the boundaries on new features and functionality by maximizing energy efficiency and minimizing power consumption. When optimizing for power, experts estimate that optimal architectural decisions can reduce power by 80% or more. Come and learn from Arrow’s engineering experts will about a range of power techniques and methodologies that will help you overcome design challenges and achieve optimized power and performance utilization for next-generation low- and high-power applications, from powering AI at the edge to driving the electrification of everything。