Back in the APEC Saddle

­Another APEC’s in the books, and while by all accounts, this year’s gala in Orlando was business-as-usual, it held special significance for me.

I’m no greenhorn — to the industry, PSD, or APEC —but this was the first Applied Power and Electronics Conference I’ve attended since COVID-19 upended the globe. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve traveled since the pandemic, so this was kinda a big deal.

Objectively, APEC is a fairly small show, especially when compared to goliaths like CES or Electronica. But what it lacks in size, APEC more than makes up for in magnitude and importance. It’s the Super Bowl of our industry. The World Cup. Game 7 of the World Series. It’s as indispensable to our fair publication as semiconductors are to design engineering.

And that’s the occasion I chose to take my first flight and attend my first trade show since 2019. Talk about jumping into the deep end!

2023’s festivities were held in Orlando, FL, giving the proceedings an extra layer of revelry. The Orange County Convention Center is about 15 miles from the “Most Magical Place on Earth,” so from the flight to the airport, and a wide radius around the show, we were constantly surrounded by Disney décor and merry tourists.

You could pick out an APEC visitor from a mile away – the nice clothes and backpack an unofficial uniform – but it’s also nice to be enveloped by this many happy people, APEC or not. For someone who’s barely left his house for anything, going on four years, it was like a warm, comforting embrace.

What about the show, itself? What drew the crowds?

It probably won’t surprise you that wide band-gap semiconductors were everywhere. And because of their critical importance in EVs, any discussion of gallium nitride and silicon carbide usually led, inexorably, to an automotive conversation.

EVs, batteries, and 48 V systems dominated the vast majority of briefings – it’s abundantly clear where the economic and technological vigor is in contemporary power engineering.

And the companies I met with showcased a range of products, including battery testers, hotswap application-specific MOSFETs, reference designs, high-electron-mobility transistors, Wi-Fi speakers, audio amplifiers, ultra-low noise regulators, and all manner of GaN and SiC.

Of course, I’d be remiss to not acknowledge the wonderful hospitality shown to me by new acquaintances and old friends, alike. And in several cases, I finally met longtime colleagues whom I’ve collaborated with for years but never seen in-person.

A great time was had by all, especially me, and I can’t wait for next year and Long Beach!