APEC 2024

The IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) 2024 was held in Long Beach, California. It’s the place where officials, academics, suppliers, and distributors of power electronics come together to talk about the industry and what’s next. This is the 39^th annual IEEE APEC conference (from my count).

Figure 1: Residential hybrid integrated EV charger. (Image source: DigiKey)

A trend to note, getting both more time in sessions as well as space in the exhibition hall, was bidirectional power electronics. Bidirectional power supplies can convert AC to DC (think of taking AC power from an outlet and using it to charge a battery) and can convert DC to AC (like taking the power from the battery and putting it back to the grid). The application that’s driving interest in this area is the electric vehicle (EV) (Figure 1). The idea has been around for a while, but we’re seeing more products based around it now. The idea is to charge the EV during lower demand periods and feed electricity back to the grid in higher demand periods.

Figure 2: Underside of the residential hybrid integrated EV charger. (Image source: DigiKey)

The underside of the unit (Figure 2) is a reminder of the amount of passives that continue to play a pivotal part in power conversion. A rough estimate here on component pricing is that the bill of material (BOM) cost may be 80% passive electronics (the capacitors, chokes, and transformer) to 20% of active (transistor) material.

Some other continued trends that we’ve seen over the years keep going strong, including functional safety (preventing harm and preventing propagation of dangerous levels to connected systems), and sustainability (further driving efficient use of power) (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Functional safety and ADI efficiency train displays. (Image source: DigiKey)

ADI was showing off the increased power efficiency by driving a train set 40-50% more efficiently. This results in a train set that can run for a longer time with the same amount of power. Parts driving this efficiency gain include MAX42500 and MAX16193.

Figure 4: Power Integrations efficient power conversion display. (Image source: DigiKey)

Power Integrations continues to dig into power conversion with GaN, finding further efficiency and creating multi-output power conversion (Figure 4). A common theme that showed up in sessions and was also shown in this design was taking multiple functions and folding them into a single IC. We are seeing drivers included with switches and even temperature sensors within a single IC.

Figure 5: APEC 2024 DigiKey power electronics displays. (Image source: DigiKey)

At the DigiKey booth, there was a representation of the power electronics we sell (Figure 5). Everything from discretes to finished power supplies and anything of support in between. Beyond product, we also displayed the Power Applications and Technologies page and the DigiKey Innovation Hub.

It was great to be part of APEC 2024. The advancements in bidirectional power conversion, functional safety, and further strides in sustainability are promising trends for power electronics moving forward.

Figure 6: DigiKey representatives at APEC 2024. (Image source: DigiKey)