Day 1 - December 2nd, 2025

Bodo's WBG - Opening

My WBG event returns to the Hilton Munich Airport on December 2 and 3, our traditional location since 2017!

On this first day, I want to kick off the event with an opening roundtable starting at 4pm. After a brief welcome, I would like to discuss with you and our guests from top technology leaders, the hurdles that were to overcome on the road to WBG materials adoption today, and where you still see challenges on the horizon.

Since their challenges are fundamentally similar, I will welcome experts on both SiC and GaN on stage together. The talk is scheduled for about 90 minutes and will be followed by an informal get-together with finger food and drinks in the foyer, just like at my last event in 2024.

floorplan
Bodo during the opening keynote 2019

4pm - Roundtable

Making Wide Bandgap Designs Happen

The advantages of WBG designs are obvious which means that every design engineer in the power domain is interested in using WBG devices. However, there are also some obstacles on the way to WBG designs. In this panel discussion we will talk in a realistic way about how to make SiC and GaN designs happen. Therefore we will have a look at all the design aspects necessary – from pure semiconductor performance via thermal issues and manufacturability up to overall cost.

This year, our guests at the roundtable will be:

(portrait Alex Lidow)

Dr. Alex Lidow, CEO and Co-founder at Efficient Power Conversion (EPC), joined International Rectifier as an R&D engineer and is the co-inventor of the HEXFET power MOSFET, a power transistor that displaced the bipolar transistor and launched modern power conversion. Over the 30 years Dr. Lidow was at IRF, his responsibilities grew from engineer to head of R&D, head of manufacturing, head of sales and marketing, and finally CEO for 12 years. In addition to holding many power MOSFET and GaN FET patents, Alex has authored numerous publications; most recently he co-authored the first textbook on GaN transistors, GaN Transistors for Efficient Power Conversion. In 2004 he was elected to the Engineering Hall of Fame, and in 2005 IRF, under his leadership, International Rectifier was named one of the best managed companies in America by Forbes magazine. Dr. Lidow earned a Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology and a doctorate in Applied Physics from Stanford University. Since 1998 Alex has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology.

(portrait Harald Parzhuber)

Harald Parzhuber manages the renewable energy systems team at Texas Instruments. His team supports customers with in-depth system knowledge along with expertise on product offerings. Harald has over three decades of engineering experience, ranging from design and test engineering, to product definition and system engineering. In addition to this, he is credited with four patents in the area of industrial automation. Harald received his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Landshut, Germany.

(portrait Llew Vaughan-Edmunds)

Llew Vaughan-Edmunds is currently Senior Director, Product Management at Navitas. He has over 21 years of power semiconductor experience at Infineon, International Rectifier, ON Semiconductor, and Applied Materials. He has been responsible for strategy, engineering, and product line ownership for Gate Drivers, IGBTs, Diodes, and Wide Band Gap (SiC/GaN). He holds an MBA from Chapman University, BS in Applied Electronics from Liverpool University, and a patent in GaN device technology. He is currently Chairman for PowerAmericaand holds various board positions in power semiconductor companies and consortiums.

(portrait Dr. Nils Soltau)

Dr. Soltau has received his PhD degree from RWTH Aachen University and has joined the Semiconductor business unit of Mitsubishi Electric Europe in 2017. As application engineer, he has supported customers in Europe with technical questions. Today, Dr. Soltau works as a deputy manager in the Technical Marketing “High Power”. He analyzes technical requirements, evaluates development trends and aligns them with the product portfolio. His work focusses on high-voltage IGBT and SiC MOSFET modules. These devices are developed for demanding applications like railway, power distribution or HVDC power transmission. Dr. Soltau has received the Borchers Plaque from RWTH Aachen University and is active member of the IEEE and the VDE (Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies). He has authored and co-authored 6 peer-reviewed Journal papers, 3 patents and over 30 publications on international scientific conferences.

(portrait Dr. Peter Friedrichs)

Dr. Peter Friedrichs received his Dipl.-Ing. in microelectronics from the Technical University of Bratislava in 1993 and finished his Ph.D thesis at the Fraunhofer Institute FhG-IIS-B in Erlangen. His focus area of expertise was the physics of the MOS interface in SiC. In 1996 he joined the Siemens AG and was involved in the development of power devices on SiC. Peter joined SiCED GmbH & Co. KG, a company being a joint venture of Siemens and Infineon, on March the 1st, 2000. Since July 2004 he was the managing director of SiCED. In 2009 he achieved the Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. from the University of Hagen. After the integration of SiCED’s activities into Infineon he joined Infineon Technologies AG on April 1st, 2011 and acts currently as Infineon’s Fellow SiC Innovation & Industrialization.

(portrait xxx)

Alexander Reich (Director) is responsible for the product line heavy duty and performance inverter within Schaeffler AG. He started to work on power electronics for electrified vehicles in 2004 and has since then a strong focus on integration of semiconductors for high power inverters. In a very early stage Alexander actively promoted cooperation between semiconductor suppliers and automotive Tier1 to optimize continuously power stages for inverters. This work includes IGBT, SiC and GaN technology. For several years Alexander was responsible for the competence center of power electronics at Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen, developing equipment for HV-grid applications.