POWER ELECTRONIC PACKAGING
The CPMT Power Electronics Packaging Technical Committee (TC-13) is jointly sponsored by several organizations. One is the Power Sources Manufacturers Association (www.PSMA.com). The PSMA has taken a leadership role to support development of a technology roadmap for power electronics packaging. Dr. Doug Hopkins, Chair of the Packaging Committee, is organizing this packaging roadmap.
A supportive initiative is to determine the current status of power electronics packaging, thereby forming a benchmark for the roadmap. This initiative, entitled STATPEP (Status of Power Electronic Packaging), is being undertaken by PEI Technologies at the National Microelectronics Research Centre, University College, Cork, Ireland, under contract to the PSMA. PEI Technologies is a joint industry / government / university R&D organization, partially funded by the Irish Government and based within a number of Universities in Ireland.
The proposed STATPEP approach is to review the packaging trends in power supply development over the last 10 to 15 years and attempt to define experience curves which may lead to useful prediction tools for the industry, and its suppliers and customers. It is proposed to work within the product framework defined by the PSMA reports on Power in the Year 2000 (Bob Freund 1994) and Power Technology Roadmap (Don Staffiere and Jim Sarjeant, 1997). A framework for power electronics packaging was also defined and presented at the Plenary session of 1998 Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC'’8).
The first meeting of the STATPEP initiative was held at APEC’93 in Disneyland and attended by 12 people representing 9 companies. The initiative requires support from the power supply industry and its suppliers to provide matching funds and product for evaluation. All interested parties should contact: Dr. Sean Cian Mathuna, email: omathuna @nmrc.ucc.ie or Arnold Alderman email: aalderm1@irf.com.