It has been 40 years since the first APEC and the first Issue of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics (TPEL). What has happened in that nearly half a century? A lot! Power electronics technology has experienced advances that have been transformational – e.g., in semiconductors, control, packaging, economics, sensors – and these advances have made power electronics an enabler for many new applications — anti-lock brakes, drive by wire, capturing solar and wind energy, high-field MRI. We review this progress, highlighting salient milestones and discuss the current state of our technology. We then consider what developments, and their implications, we might reasonably expect to see within the next decade, and what advances in technology and applications are not yet envisioned but hold promise for the future.
