PwrSoC Workshop History

Brief Background    

PwrSoC started by the initiative of Tyndall Institute, in Cork, Ireland, where the first 2 editions were hosted in 2008 and 2010. IEEE/PELS and PSMA became co-sponsors of the workshop, strengthening its international scope in San Francisco (2012), Boston (2014), and Madrid (2016). In 2018 the Workshop was held in Hsinchu, Taiwan a center of world leading microelectronics development and manufacturing. This rotation -Europe, America, Asia- reflects the ambition of PwrSoC to remain a global workshop. To celebrate the 10th anniversary, PSMA, in partnership with IEEE PELS, is organizing the next workshop was hosted by National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in Hsinchu, Taiwan and was held October 17, 18, 19 2018.

PwrSoC Workshop 2021

At its 7th event, the International PwrSoC Workshop returned to North America at the Singh Center for Nanotechnology on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. The PwrSoC 2021 was chaired by an experienced team with Prof. Mark Allen of (UPenn) as the General Chair and Matt Wilkowski of (Enachip) and Hanh-Phuc Le (UCSD) as the Technical Program Co-Chairs. Marking the first event after the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held both in person and online platform. The event was well attended by 167 attendees and received a lot of compliments and excitements for the fantastic series of speakers and important topics and technology advancement of the field, including systems and integration, active and passive components, system integration, packaging and manufacturing, granular power topologies and control. The workshop also aligned with an increase in granular power supplies and compelling demonstrations of commercialized products that make a clear case for PwrSoC and PSiP technologies becoming more prominent and mainstream. The workshop also marked its importance in an interactive in-person break-out session focusing on the PwrSoC roadmap for the next 5-10-15 years.

PwrPACK Workshop 2019

A  workshop consisting of two full half-days on Packaging and Integration in Power Delivery held in Phoenix, Arizona at Arizona State University’s SkySong Innovation in Scottsdale, AZ October 31-Nov. 1, 2019. This  event was An Exploratory Workshop Leading to the next International Workshop on Power Supply on Chip (PwrSoC), to be held in Philadelphia, PA in 2021. The PwrPACK Workshop focused on two topics related to power delivery in a package: 1) Power system in package (PSIP) power modules and 2) Process and integration of multi-die power delivery in package. Workshop General Chair was Professor Hongbin Yu from ASU who stated, “… The presenters were from the local Phoenix area with a few coming from international distances. Most importantly, our satellite PwrPACK Workshop achieved our intent to increase the awareness of the PwrSoC developments and create a lead-in to the 3-day PwrSoC Workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. Jim Doyle of Dialog Semiconductor was Technical Program Chair.  

PwrSoC Workshop 2018

The 6th International PwrSoC Workshop was hosted by the National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in Hsinchu. Professor Ke-Horng Chen, Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in NCTU was General Co-Chair along with Prof. Cian Ó Mathúna, from Tyndall National Institute, the originator of the workshop. The 2018 PwrSoC Workshop confirmed the strong advancement of the critical technologies necessary to commercialize miniaturized power management semiconductor circuits integrated with associated power passive components. The welcoming message to attendees was, Attendees  celebrated the 10-year workshop history with not only advanced technologies to build granular power supplies but also compelling demonstrations of commercialized products that make a clear case for PwrSoC and PSiP technologies becoming more prominent and mainstream.

PwrSoC Workshop 2016

The 5th International power supply on chip workshop, PwrSoC2016 was  hosted by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, October 3-5, in Madrid, Spain. The Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) and IEEE Power Electronics Society (IEEE PELS) are jointly sponsoring the workshop and the Centro de Electrónica Industrial (CEI-UPM) is hosting the event. The General Chair was José A. Cobos from The Centre of Industrial Electronics (CEI), a research center at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). This workshop featured two Topologies & Control Session, a strong compound  Semiconductor Session focus, a full manufacturing session,

PwrSoC Workshop 2014

This workshop was chaired by Arnold Alderman from Anagenesis, Inc. He contributed  to PSiP and PwrSoC reports published by the Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) as early as 2007. In welcoming the opportunity to chair the workshop in Boston, he stated that “this workshop, as in past workshops, will continue seeking to address a broad number of device and packaging leading-edge technologies, alternative topologies, and manufacturing processes that will enable both the emerging modular and granular PwrSoC providing power delivery for large system on chip platforms, such as microprocessors, microcontrollers, DSP and ASIC chips, where multiple independent power rails enhance system performance. Echoing previous observations by PwrSoC Workshop founder, Tyndall Institute’s Dr. Cian O’Mathuna, we continue to see a significant government and commercial investment growth in PwrSoC enabling technologies via research partnerships between academia and industry”.

PwrSoC Workshop 2012

This workshop was chaired by UC Berkeley Prof. Seth Sanders, one of the pioneers of Power Supply on Chip technology dating back to the mid-1990s. In welcoming the opportunity to host the workshop in San Francisco, he stated that “this workshop will address the broader context of PwrSoC – as well as addressing the concept of board mounted dc-dc converters that replace linear regulators in terms of size and cost but with much higher efficiency, the workshop is going to place particular emphasis on the concept of granular power delivery for large system on chip platforms, such as microprocessors, microcontrollers and DSP chips, where multiple independent power rails enhance system performance. PwrSoC 2012 is the only international technical workshop dedicated to advancing these important leading-edge power conversion technologies.”

PwrSoC Workshops 2008 and 2010

The PwrSoC Workshops 2008 and 2010 were chaired by the workshop founder Tyndall Institute’s, Dr. Cian Ó Mathúna, who has been highly successful in attracting the leading industry and academic players, from around the world, to discuss the technical and commercial challenges in bringing this emerging technology platform to the market. Dr. Ó Mathúna, who has been researching and promoting magnetics on silicon technology for more than a decade, presented a perspective on the recent growth of interest in the PwrSoC space stated in 2008 “Over the last two years, we are seeing a significant increase in state and commercial investment. A number of market studies have appeared and both the U.S. ARPA-E and the EU Framework 7 program have made significant investment in PwrSoC research partnerships between academia and industry”.

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