The Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) and the IEEE Power Electronics Society (IEEE PELS) are jointly sponsoring its third annual Capacitors in Power Electronics Workshop. This year’s all-day workshop entitled, “How to Choose and Define Capacitor Usage for Emerging Applications,” will be held on Saturday, March 14, 2020, the day before the start of and in the same venue as APEC 2020 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA.

The day-long educational session will consist of morning and afternoon technical lecture presentations and lunchtime interactive technology demonstrations. Opening with a keynote address titled, “Challenges and Requirements on Capacitors for Aircraft Electrification” by Prof. Pat Wheeler of the University of Nottingham, the workshop features presenters from market-leading capacitor manufacturers including KEMET, CDE and Wurth Electronics plus renowned lecturers from universities around the world. The technical lecture sessions will each be followed by a panel Q&A to offer attendees the opportunity to engage with the presenters.

This workshop will address the needs of both beginners and advanced designers of DC-DC converters, frequency drives, inverters and other power conversation applications. The agenda addresses application-based challenges on capacitor technologies rising from the introduction of GaN and SiC topologies, the impact of e-mobility and the latest capacitor developments. The impact of market shortages on new developments and possible solutions to overcome actual problems will also be discussed. Capacitor technologies reviewed include supercapacitors, tantalums, polymer horizontal chips, ceramic specialties and the latest film developments.

There will be eight technology demonstration stations which will be available during breakfast, lunch and during the networking at the end of the day’s events. This is an opportunity to meet professionals and see up-close the various technologies and their advantages. Attendees will also be able to visit the technology demonstrations for the 2020 Power Magnetics @ High Frequency Workshop being held at the same time.

The workshop ends at 5:00 p.m. and will be followed by a networking social event with wine, beer and hors d’oeuvres. The presenters will participate in the social hour and the technical demonstrations will remain active for those who wish to continue discussions after the workshop.

“In past years, capacitors have been seen as just passives with unfailing ability, but emerging technical developments are having a dramatic impact on capacitor selection and performance,” commented Pierre Lohrber, PSMA Capacitor Committee Co-Chairman. “The focus of our workshop is to show engineers and interested users how capacitors are contributing to meet the emerging industry needs for higher performance and reliability. Presenters will bring information and lessons from ongoing R&D to address a variety of challenging future-oriented applications.”

Waivers of the workshop registration fee are available for up to four students who will have the opportunity to display a poster in the demonstration area and to give a short presentation of their research during the workshop. The application deadline is January 5, 2020. Students can submit their poster proposal and apply for the fee waiver at https://www.psma.com/webforms/capacitor-workshop-student-registration-fee-waiver-2020.

For more information on the capacitor workshop and registration, please visit: http://www.psma.com/technical-forums/capacitor/workshop