2024 Online Summer Workshop

2024 Summer Workshop Recap

PowerAmerica’s most recent Online Summer Workshop was held from Aug. 6-8, 2024.

Nearly 230 industry experts, students and working professionals registered for this year’s workshop.

Workshop Highlights

• Tutorial on ultra-WBG power technology
• Final reports on five Member-Initiated Projects
• DoE Power Electronics Research Roadmap
• Overviews of two new PowerAmerica RFPs, one focused on R&D and another focused on education
• Final reports on three undergraduate scholarship projects
• Presentations from eight different graduate student researchers

Keynote Presentations

Frazer Anderson – SiC and GaN Power Electronics: An equipment supplier’s perspective

Chief Technology Officer – Oxford Instruments

Frazer is currently the Chief Technology Officer for Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology (OIPT). A respected technologist with more than 40 years of experience in the design and manufacture of capital equipment for the semiconductor industry, Frazer has leadership experience across a wide range of roles, including manufacturing, engineering, product development and product management. He is responsible for the coordination of the company’s National and Global Research Project Portfolio and has been instrumental in forming several long-term global collaborative partnerships.

He is involved in a number of UK government and EU-led Compound Semiconductor and Graphene Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and is also a member of five Strategic Advisory Boards, as well as the Board of SEMI UK. He is very active in promoting OIPT’s involvement in the UK’s Centres for Doctoral Training and is an active member of several UK government initiatives on Sustainability and Key Skills Development.

Tamara Baksht – GaN HEMT for Electric Car Inverter: Challenges and Solutions

Founder and CEO – ViSiC

Tamara’s background education is from Tomsk State University, Russia, where she studied Philosophy and Physics. Going forward, she gained a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University, focusing on GaAs and GaN HEMTs. She started working on GaN HEMT in Gal El (MMIC), part of the Israel Aircraft Industry.

Tamara is one of the pioneers in GaN transistor design and development, covering wide power and frequency ranges. She has years of experience running multi-disciplinary GaN projects, defining work plans, budgeting, reporting, transferring products to production and providing customer support.

In 2010 Tamara co-founded VisIC Technologies with III-V semi-technology expert Gregory Bunin, and she has been leading the company ever since.