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New Photos added! See all the pictures Here! APEC '99 Photo Page

As APEC was held at the same time as the NCAA Tournament, I would like to compare APEC's achievements to the sport of basketball. Those of us who follow professional sports know the difficulty in being a perennial winner. Some may argue that the greatest teams were the Chicago Bulls while others may choose the LA Lakers or the old Boston Celtics. We read about the quest to "three peat," be #1 for three consecutive years. In the area of "applied" power electronics conferences, I would state, without hesitation, that the best team of this decade is the volunteers who produce the APEC Conference supported by our conference management team, Courtesy Associates. This broad group of volunteers from industry and academia deserves all of the recognition bestowed on them for their contributions to this conference and exposition.

The 14th annual Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition started out with a huge challenge. At the last minute, the Dallas Hyatt Regency hotel, our original site, could not guarantee that their renovation would be completed prior to the Conference week. As such, the Conference committee scrambled to locate suitable replacement facilities at the new Adams Mark, Dallas, Texas' biggest hotel.

When you consider that our peak overnight lodging exceeded 700 rooms, and the hotel has only 1825 guest rooms, (and was supporting three other Conferences), you can gain a better appreciation for the challenge that we confronted and overcame. Even the 18 foot bronze sculpture in the lobby depicting a horse spooked by its cowboy rider's yellow rain slicker did not intimidate our attendees.

This years Conference and Exposition attendance was more than 1700, from over two dozen nations. Over 1000 of these individuals paid to attend the Professional Education Seminars, Technical Sessions, or both, setting new records in all three categories. Individuals at this year's Conference had the opportunity to attend professional education seminars, multi-speaker technical sessions, vendor application seminars, RAP sessions, the exhibit hall, the 13th annual Micro Mouse competition, and a "fantasy train trip through Texas" buffet.

The records established this year reflect the continuing strong support of the APEC sponsors--the IEEE Power Electronics and Industry Applications Societies (PELS & IAS), and the Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA)--and the dedication of more than 200 volunteer representatives of the Conference and Program Committees.

The Conference opened on Sunday morning with five of the 15 half day Professional Education Seminars being presented by seasoned industry and academia professionals. Once again the topics were selected to appeal to the widest possible cross-section of APEC attendees. The newly established record o f 429 paid seminar registrants attests to the growing popularity of the seminars among APEC attendees.

This year's seminar topics included: An introduction to power electronics for the non-specialist; electronic environments; high efficiency rectification technique for both low and high output voltage applications; how to select and apply an adjustable seed AC drive; power electronics packaging; power converter design using power semiconductors; avoiding the EMI 'accident'--how to paper train your power supply; cross-regulation mechanisms in multiple- output forward and flyback converters; DSP control of advanced motor drives; practical considerations for MOSFET gate drive techniques in high speed, switchmode applications; using computer aided algebra for power supply analysis & design; passive lossless snubbers for high frequency PWM carriers; the ABC's of planar magnetic design; understanding the basics of vector- controlled induction motor drives; and, patents, prior Art searching, and intellectual property of power electronic engineers.

It is evident that the need to increase efficiency and power density of switchmode power supplies are an ongoing concern for practicing engineers. Around 220 of the seminar attendees signed up at 8 A.M. on Sunday morning to attend Ionel "Dan" Jitaru's seminar on high efficiency rectification to address this ongoing challenge. Other highly attended seminars were presented by Sam Ben-Yaakov and Bruce Carsten.

With 657 paid attendees, APEC's technical registration surpassed the 1998 record set for this segment of the Conference. This total does not include booth staff who were also granted access to the technical sessions.

Prior to opening the Plenary Session, PELS President Philip Krein, IAS President Ira Pitel and PSMA Chairman Ed Sidor presented awards to General Chair Dong Tan, Program Chair Bob White and Finance Chair Herman W. "Butch" Hill, Jr. for their contributions to the APEC Conference.

Dr. Raymond F. Askew, Special Advisor to the International Space Station made a keynote address entitled "keeping the space station up to date technologically. The other Plenary session presentations included: the evolution of power electronics, power conversion; the prosperity machine--part II, the semiconductor road map; STATPEP--current status of power electronics packaging for power supplies--methodology; SSI: Building compliant elements for servers; and AC drives: Y2K and beyond.

187 (of 192 accepted papers--another APEC record) were presented in 26 sessions divided up into five tracks starting on Tuesday morning. Topics ranged from marketing to modeling and simulation, passive and active components, inverters and converters, to single and three phase AC-DC power supplies.

For the eighth consecutive year the exposition hall was "sold out." This year's exposition contained 119 booths (another APEC record). Based upon feedback from the attendees', Exhibits Chair John Bassett presented blue ribbons to Tom Johnson of Elcon as the "happiest salesperson," I.R. for the "best booth" and Cheery Semiconductor for the "best giveaway," a yo-yo.

David Tang of G.M. (formerly Hughes Aircraft) was the winner of the exhibit hall drawing where he was presented with a Phillips "personal companion" by Cecile Phillips of Courtesy Associates.

At the request of the Trade Commission of Denmark, the Conference Committee agreed to permit Denmark to have it's own Pavilion within the APEC Exposition. More than 30 Danish business executives, including William Helmbaek, Project Manager, Danish Agency for Trade, Allan Haugsted, Ministry of Business and Industry, and Mr. Harlan Crow, CEO Crow Holdings (and honorary Council, Denmark) attended the Conference to promote International cooperation with Danish companies.

The exhibitors provided attendees with free access to a broad range of their newest components, power supplies and design tools and had experts on hand for problem solving or general advise. Not to single out any individual or exhibitor, I do wish to acknowledge that Mr. Alex Lido, CEO of International Rectifier (I.R.) was in their booth to answer any questions. Mr. Lido also presented a paper in our plenary session on Monday. Forget the unlimited supply of carved beef, ham or turkey, or the multiple brands of beer and wine served during the Monday and Tuesday evening exhibit hall receptions. It doesn't get any better than APEC for networking with your peers competitors or customers. In a word APEC '99 was "awesome." Let me prove my point by reporting that former Exhibits Chair Eugene Eucker of Collmer Semiconductor arrived at 4 A.M. to sign up for his firm's Y2K booth selection. Although sign-ups do not start until 7 A.M., Gene wanted to have the honor of being first. Not this time. The first person in line, at 1:30 A.M. was Arbie Fuentes of Cableco Technologies. Elcon VP Sales Tom Johnson arrived at 2 A.M. to have the second booth selection. Before the day was over, all 104 booths for APEC 2000 were reserved with at least four firms on a priority wait list.

As part of the APEC tradition, all conference attendees had n opportunity to attend 10 "free" one hour exhibitor application oriented seminars on Tuesday afternoon. Topics ranged from instrumentation and software to the latest magnetic and semiconductor devices. The Danish Pavilion provided an overview of products designed by their participant companies.

Another annual APEC highlight, the Micro Mouse contest, was very popular again this year. A field of 13 "mice," including 9 from foreign teams, competed in this year's 13th Annual APEC contest. The goal of the contest is to design and build a robot that can navigate from the corner of a 10 foot square maze to the center in the shortest time. An audience in excess of 150 people watched as Kwa Gwang, designed by Roh Chang Hyun of Korea "squeaked" by CUQEE III, the winner of last year's APEC competition. Kwa Gwang (which means "sound of lighting" in Korea), is a stepper motor driven mouse utilizing an AMD 188 ES processor. This student entry had the best score and the fastest time (15.2 seconds). In third place was MITEE Mouse 8, designed by Micro Mouse Chair David Otten representing M.I.T.Tuesday evening's RAP session gave the attendees and exhibitors an opportunity to challenge and question the panelists on four relevant issues, from "profit margins--the power supply industry game of limbo"; and "where is power electronics technology going and who'll take us there" to "power talk! the very first APEC call-in radio show (except it's in person)' to thekey issue "is APEC serving the needs of it's constituents and living up to it's name?" The most popular of these frank discussions, with an audience of 85 was the issue on technology. Everyone agreed that a major challenge will be how we address the issue of packaging in the new Millennium On the subject of challenges we are extremely sensitive to making sure that we are meeting the expectations of our attendees by delivering presentations that address the world of "applied" power electronics." As a follow-up to that RAP session, a straw pole was taken on Wed. where roughly 75-80 % of the response was that our papers are both "practical and applied."

On Wed. evening upwards of 500 paid attendees were taken on a "fantasy train trip through Texas" buffet. In addition to a wide selection of sumptuous food and desserts, the attendee had an opportunity to have his or her photo taken on a bull or could participate in an old western fast draw competition as a gunslinger (using blanks of course). Live music and western dancing capped off this memorable evening.

In his greeting/letter to APEC '99, Texas Governor George W. Bush clearly recognized what we are all about when he stated that "your annual Conference offers an important forum for free exchange of technology information between engineers, academics and manufacturing professionals throughout the world. As a National technical professional society, your knowledge and skills in developing industrial, commercial, and military electronic systems have the potential to enhance the quality of life for millions of people. I commend you for your commitment to your profession and for encouraging students and young professionals by providing mentors and educational seminars."

Looking ahead, APEC 2000 will be held Feb. 6-10, 2000 at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans, LA. APEC '2001 will return to the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, CA.

Anyone interested in submitting a technical session proposal of "practical" importance in any area of power electronics should submit a 50 word abstract and a 3-5 page digest (via mail ONLY) to : APEC 2000, 2000 L Street NW, Suite 710, Washington, D.C. 20036. The deadline for submission of abstracts and digests is July16, 1999. We are also seeking half-day professional education Seminar proposals.