The SFBAC (combined Santa Clara Valley, San Francisco, & Oakland/East Bay) IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) is very pleased to invite you to the inaugural event of the newly-resurrected local chapter. We are excited and honored to have Tony Sagneri, PhD., CTO & Co-founder of FINsix to speak on the topic of “The Challenges of VHF Power Conversion” and the associated experience of putting the common laptop adapter through an amazing reduction in size and, more importantly, major improvement in overall efficiency. Additional event details can be found below.

PELS WEBSITE LINK: https://ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/pels/index.html

NOTE: This event will also be co-sponsored by SCV PES/IAS Joint Chapter & CES. You can learn more about these societies by clicking links on the SFBAC PELS website.

In order to promote attendance and support other PELS activity, there is a registration fee for most attendees.  Please note this is intended to be a free event so any fee collected (for this and future events) will be tracked and applied to the registrant for either IEEE PELS membership or future, major event (i.e. – workshop) registration fees.

Talk Title:

The Challenges of VHF Power Conversion

Abstract:

How much could power supply density increase if operating frequency was substantially increased? Not just by a factor of 5 or 10, but into the 10’s of MHz, the frequency band known as Very High Frequency (VHF) in the radio world. Making very high density, high frequency power supplies with sufficient energy efficiency to meet thermal requirements is a significant challenge.

In this presentation, resonant power converter topologies based on class-E inverters will be reviewed. The design challenges of tuning the resonant elements, control, magnetic design, meeting EMI and safety requirements, and packaging for high density will be discussed, along with a vision of the future of high frequency power conversion.

About the speaker:

Dr. Anthony Sagneri (AKA Tony) is Co-Founder and CTO of FINsix corp, a Menlo Park based startup with the goal of using our technology to build the smallest, lightest, and highest-performing power electronics. Dr. Sagneri also co-founded OnChip Power Corporation and served as its Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Sagneri helped establish the fundamental network principles behind VHF power conversion and designed and built over a dozen high-performance converters. In addition, he established and validated device optimization and transformer synthesis techniques enabling higher efficiency and access to a broader applications space.

Before MIT, he served for five years in the U.S. Air Force, rising to the rank of Captain. As a Mission Operations Commander at DGS-2, Beale AFB, he led a team of 70 intelligence operators to 169 collection missions over a number of locations worldwide. He served as a Director of OnChip Power Corporation. He holds a Ph.D. and S.M. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, a BSEE from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer Course. He completed a Ph.D. with the RLE/LEES laboratory at MIT in VHF power.