Marco Palma
Director of motor drives systems and applications
EPC
Marco Palma joined EPC in 2019, where he is Director of motor drives systems and applications. He has over 20 years of experience in motor control power electronics ranging from switches to gate drivers, controllers, and algorithms. For International Rectifier, Marco worked on the smallest 13 kW fully integrated and programmable motor drive power module in 2002, the first industrial sensor-less FOC controller IC in 2004, and the smallest 100 W, fully integrated fan drive module in 2009. For Infineon technologies, he worked on the smallest programmable 100 W fully integrated motor control power module in 2018. He is the author of several articles and patents in the field of motor control. Marco earned his Master of Science degree in Electronics from Politecnico di Torino and his Master of Business Administration from Bocconi Management School, Milano.
Presentations
GaN Integrated Circuits are Revolutionizing Power Electronics
The latest ePower™ integrated circuits based on gallium nitride technology by Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) are revolutionizing Power Electronics applications such as dc-dc converters and motor drives as industrial drones, e-bikes, scooters, power tools. Gallium nitride technology has opened a new era in the world of power electronics because of a clear differentiation factor between GaN and silicon: medium voltage gallium nitride devices can be built on a planar technology while this is cost-prohibitive for silicon devices. Silicon devices are made on a vertical technology, making it physically impossible to have two power devices in the same chip. EPC’s GaN-on-Si planar technology allows the integration of the power section with the control in the same die. In 2014, EPC started the journey toward a power system-on-a-chip introducing a family of integrated devices comprised of multiple FETs on one chip. Practical examples of real applications with these integrated circuits will be shown at the PE International Conference.