This week, NC State University’s PowerAmerica Institute is hosting over 200 professionals in the power electronics industry for a meeting covering the latest advancements in their sector.

PowerAmerica, a Department of Energy-backed initiative, supports companies and projects that are building wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors. This technology permits devices to operate at significantly greater voltages, frequencies and temperatures as compared to conventional semiconductor materials.

The PowerAmerica Institute annual meeting, set for February 12-14 at the McKimmon Center, includes a series of presentations from member-initiated projects developing SiC (silicon-carbide) and GaN (gallium nitride) power electronics—the two leading next-generation technologies for WBG semiconductor adoption.

Technical training sessions and talks will also cover these technologies in-depth.

Keynote addresses will be delivered by Adrian Kallis, advanced technology manager at John Deere Electronic Solutions, and HanJong Kim, director of global power electronics at United Technologies-Carrier.

An evening reception will be held on Wednesday at the Museum of History in downtown Raleigh.

See the full agenda here.

The PowerAmerica Institute is backed by $70 million from the Department of Energy, plus matching funds from industry and State partners. It has 46 member companies and organizations, mostly from industry and academia, with a smaller share of national labs and other programs.

According to PowerAmerica’s 2018 annual report, which was released last week, the institute has distributed more than $20 million to 28 projects in 2018. The total amount awarded to date is $80 million to 95 projects since PowerAmerica’s founding in 2014.

“We feel our industry is really on the precipice of explosive growth,” said PowerAmerica Communications Manager Julia Casadonte. “It’s a very exciting time to be around.”

Casadonte says development for wide bandgap power electronics technologies are taking off locally through the growth and success of companies like Wolfspeed, the power and radio frequency division of Durham-based Cree. Just last month, Cree announced a multi-year agreement to supply Wolfspeed’s SiC wafers to multinational semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics.

Registration for PowerAmerica’s 2019 meeting is at its highest ever, according to Casadonte, with over 220 attendees hailing from companies like ABB, GM and Lockheed Martin.

Additionally, PowerAmerica has seen a lot of interest from automotive companies, some of which are not current members of the organization. “[This is] reflective of the important roles WBG technologies will play in electric vehicles, which many companies are heavily investing in right now,” Casadonte says.

“I think this meeting will be our most exciting year yet, as the industry is seeing unprecedented growth and we’ll have higher attendance than ever,” Casadonte added. “You’ll see a lot of progress presented by members who have been working on PowerAmerica-funded technologies for sometimes several years at this point, with many technologies nearing the commercialization stage.”

https://wraltechwire.com/event/power-america-annual-conference-2019/