StarPower is a manufacturer of power modules specializing in the design and manufacture of IGBT modules for industrial and automotive applications. The company offers a wide range of industry standard packages and pride ourselves in providing modules from an independent chip supply. StarPower has several manufacturing locations in the Greater Shanghai Area and a team of experienced sales and engineering professionals to support their customers in Europe.
Interview with Marcus Lippert, Business Development Manager at StarPower Europe AG
Easy Engineering: What are the most successful products in your line-up?
Marcus Lippert: We support an ever-growing customer base with standard 650V, 1200V and 1700V IGBT modules for a wide range of industrial applications. Our trench IGBT technology is very popular with European customers, but we also see a lot of demand for traditional NPT IGBTs, especially from the welding and induction heating segment.
E.E: Tell us about the team in your company and how important is the human factor?
M.L: Teamwork is very important in our relatively young but fast-growing business. We have an excellent mix of experienced industry professionals who bring their years of knowledge to the company and graduates who are keen to learn, innovate and bring the company to the next level.
E.E: What can you tell us about products distribution?
M.L: StarPower ships to customers worldwide although our main business is currently within the Chinese market. Nevertheless, we have been consistently and steadily expanding our presence in Europe via our experienced sales team and specialized distribution partners. An important collaboration was the start of our cooperation with Farnell that enables us to sample a wide range of our standard portfolio from stock in Europe within a few days.
E.E: What’s the client feedback for the best-selling products?
M.L: We know that most customers are very careful when it comes to changing their IGBT supplier due to the importance of the component for an overall application. Quality is therefore one of the key principles the company is built upon and the overall feedback from our European customers has been overwhelmingly positive. Our products perform what they are set out to offering an independent second source option to our customers.
E.E: How does this feedback impact development of new products?
M.L: New product developments are mainly taking place on the chip side, where we are working on a number of programs to enhance power density and reduce losses. The launch of a new chip is always a process that requires close cooperation with our customers as only they can tell us where optimizations are needed and how their application requirements will impact the next product generation.
E.E: Tell us about the research and development in your company?
M.L: Our R&D activity is focused on chip and package-related product development. For both areas, we have a number of experienced industry professionals that help us to translate our customer requirements into new development projects. StarPower is 100% customer-oriented, and our R&D activities are focused on enabling the success of our customers.
E.E: What is your company philosophy and what drives your company forward?
M.L: Dreams are realized by quality, which is the key principle our founder set out when setting up the company in 2005. At the same time, we know that our customers operate in a very competitive market environment where cost is also an important issue. Our aim is therefore to combine both elements to offer reliable products specific to our customer requirements at a competitive price level.
E.E: What guarantees success in your area of activity?
M.L: We believe that flexibility, the ability to listen to our customers, and hard work offer the best chance for our long-term success in an ever-changing market environment.
E.E: Give us some details about the after-sales service & customer support?
M.L: Our team of experienced sales engineers offers dedicated support throughout the entire design process from product selection right through to qualification by the customer.
StarPower Europe AG