Alan Mantooth, President of the IEEE PELS society and Distinguished Professor at University of Arkansas gave an impressing presentation at the TU Darmstadt, Germany, on November 27^th.

With bandgap power semiconductors such as SiC or GaN transistors entering the application arena the power electronics community has to tackle high frequency issues in the design and layout of the package and the joints. With the capability of WBG semiconductors to switch within a few nanoseconds, we have to optimize our systems up to a couple of 100 MHz.

Alan gave an impressing talk and insight into his research activities conducted in Arkansas, US. This covers 3D modelling of electrical and thermal behavior in order the increase power density and efficiency. The most impressing part of his presentation was the introduction of PowerSynth, a tool which pretty much supports and accelerates the design of power electronics systems with an incredible speed.

We thank Alan for joining us and wish all the best to him and his colleagues over in Arkansas.