CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE

I would like to extend a warm welcome to the international community of industrial and academic professionals in power semiconductor devices and integrated circuits to the 21st International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs (ISPSD 2009). This symposium is the major international conference related to power devices and is held annually, alternating between Asia, North America and Europe. The 21st edition, following the successful events in Orlando, Florida, USA and Jeju Island, Korea, returns to Europe, and for the first time is held in Barcelona, Spain between June 14th-17th 2009.

Due to limitations of time and space and to preserve excellence, the Technical Programme Committee (TPC) has selected 84 papers for oral and poster presentation. ISPSD always receives extensive support from the power devices community as reflected from the number of abstracts submitted for consideration by the TPC. This year the conference had 135 submissions. The truly global nature of ISPSD is reflected by the fact that contributions originated from a total 18 countries: 49 papers from Europe, 54 from Asia, 30 from North- America and 2 papers from the Middle-East. The countries with the most contributions were Japan with 36, United States with 29, UK with 13, Germany with 12 and South Korea with 10 submissions. The TPC has chosen papers which report the latest advances in core power devices and ICs, including a range of papers covering new technologies and concepts that are capable of enhancing the future performance and application of power devices. The papers presented here are indicative of the major industrial and academic activity worldwide in power devices and ICs, with a high impact on strategic areas such as efficient energy management.

The programme includes 35 contributed oral presentations (8 from Low Voltage and RF, 11 from High Voltage, 9 from Integrated Power and 7 from Wide Band Gap), and 49 poster presentations (9 from Low Voltage and RF, 14 from High Voltage, 18 from Integrated Power and 8 from Wide Band Gap), resulting in a 62% overall acceptance rate. In addition to the submitted papers, the conference will offer three invited Plenary Papers. The Plenary Speakers will open the conference, beginning with Prof. G. Amaratunga from Cambridge University informing us about “Releasing new power semiconductor technology: The start-up company routemaking a spin-off in power”, followed by Dr. Ken Chen from TSMC on “The foundry perspective on integrated power technologies“ and concluding with Dr. Alex Huang of NCSU on “The Role of Power Electronics and Power Semiconductors in Developing an Energy Internet”. The conference will also offer an exciting Short Course Programme on Sunday June 14th including: Cosmic Rays Failure in Power Devices by Drs. Thomas Stiasny and Friedhelm Bauer, GaN Power Devices by Dr. Hirokazu Goto, TCAD for Power Devices by Dr. Michael Schenkel, Advanced Power MOSFET for integrated DC-DC Converters by Prof. Phil Mawby, Safe operating area considerations in power ICs by Dr. Phil Hower, Module Packages and Reliability by Dr. Uwe Scheuermann, and IGBTs: concept, state-of-the art technologies, and derivatives by Dr. Florin Udrea.

ISPSD 2009 is being held in Barcelona, a European city with more than 2,000 years of history that epitomises several different societies, and has an internationally-acknowledged cultural heritage. In fact, Barcelona is more than just a single city. It is a collection of multi-faceted and diverse neighbourhoods or barris. The visitor unfamiliar with its history might be surprised to hear that such a modern and enterprising city preserves its historic medieval centre almost intact, or by the curious contrast between the maze of narrow streets in the Barri Gótic and the grid-like layout of the Eixample, the urban utopian planning "enlargement" project from the end of the 19th century. Like Europe in general, whilst being passionate about its history, Barcelona is also at the heart of many current advances in science, technology and humanities. It is now at the centre of Spain’s fastest growing economic region. The climate in mid June is near ideal, with sunshine and comfortable temperature. On behalf of the ISPSD Steering, Organizing and Programme Committees, I sincerely invite you to attend this stimulating event.

Professor José Millán,
General Chairman ISPSD 2009