uwloo

ECE 463Design and Applications of Power Electronic Converters

Units
0.50
Faculty
Engineering
Subject
Electrical and Computer Engineering

When it runs

  1. F24
  2. W25
  3. S25
  4. F25
  5. W26
  6. S26
  7. F26
  8. W27
  9. S27

Ran in 3 of the last 7 terms. Winter 2027: not on the schedule. Spring 2027: schedule not out yet.

Principles of power conditioning. Switching characteristics of power semiconductor devices. Computer simulation of power electronic circuits. Analysis, design, and applications of power converters.

Prerequisites

  • Complete all of the following
    • Students must be in level 4A or higher
    • Enrolled in an Engineering program

Antirequisites

  • Not completed nor concurrently enrolled in any of the following:
    • MTE420 - Power Electronics and Motor Drives (0.50)

Leads to

No course lists it as a requisite.

Reviewed on UW Flow

43% liked it10% easy85% useful

From 7 ratings and 2 comments on UW Flow. The most helpful comments, quoted as written, without names. Read them all on UW Flow.

  • Heavy workload, lots of prelab work through PSIM. Study the tutorial questions. The midterm was reasonable, but the final was pretty brutal. The project took alot of fumbling around; start early.

    Jul 2026 · didn’t like itOn UW FlowRemove this

  • Standard power electronics course covering AC/DC, single/multiphase converters. Topics were quite interesting, exam was fair and we had a fantastic TA.

    Nov 2015 · liked itOn UW FlowRemove this

Discussed on r/uwaterloo

14 posts and comments in 12 threads mention ECE 463, June 2015 to December 2024. Quoted word for word, newest first; each reply sits under the post and the comment that started its branch. Search r/uwaterloo for newer posts.

Winter 2024

Spring 2022

A GUIDE ON HOW TO PLAN AN OPTION 29 points, 15 comments

u/1000Ditto: “Hey all, here's an example (by yours truly) of how to plan an option. as someone who has been trying to get many options in but having a hard time, might as well write down my process so others can kind of benefit from it. …”

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Spring 2021

Any suggestion between ECE 373 and ECE 360 1 point, 7 comments

“Hi, for the 3B ECE course selection, does anyone have suggestions between ECE 373 and ECE 360? Ramadan El Shatshat \-360 Raafat Mansour \- 373 Thanks for reply!”

u/Plane_Razzmatazz_143: “… In ECE 463 you will learn that batteries, given that they are fundamentally DC sources, will inject harmonics into the grid and our current grid is just too old to deal with something like this so we are in the process of figuring how we don't end up spending trillions of …”

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Fall 2020

Good prof appreciation thread 61 points, 89 comments

“This term sucks a lot and a lot of people are having some shitty experiences, especially with certain profs/TAs/instructors. But there’s a lot of profs who are not that shitty. …”

u/Plane_Razzmatazz_143: “Had Prof Kazerani for ECE 463 and Prof Simon Wood for MUSIC last term and they were truly a gem. Managed online teaching perfectly, genuinely cared for their students and went out of their way to make things as manageable for the students without watering anything down.”

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Spring 2020

ECE331 overlaps with other semiconductor courses? 3 points, 5 comments

u/prospectiveNTU: “… If I take: \- ECE340 (circuits 2), \- ECE209 (devices 1), \- ECE432 (integrated RF), \- ECE445 (integrated digital), \- ECE463 (power including power semiconductors), and \- ECE444 (integrated analog), all of which seem to talk about semiconductor physics to some degree, then is …”

u/Frozen-Penis: “… ECE 463 I'm not too sure about but from what I know it's also not too concerned about the semiconductor physics and more on stuff like voltage regulation. …”

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ECE 4A 2 points, 8 comments

u/powerfulwizkid: “Hey guys, just wondering if anyone minds shedding some light on what ECE 4A is like? In terms of courses my TEs are ECE 462, ECE 463 and 481. For 462 I have Prof. Ahmed Gaouda and for 463 I have Prof. Mehrdad Kazerani. Anything I should watch out for? Thanks in advance.”

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Winter 2017

Spring 2015

Any mech eng doing/done the tron option? 1 point, 6 comments

“I just wanna know if there are any mech eng that are doing/done the tron option. I wanna know what courses you took to complete the option (ECE or MTE courses?) and if doing the option itself was …”

u/annihilatron: “… Courses I did not take and have heard nothing about: ME561, ME547, ECE463, ECE450, ECE457, ECE486, ME524, The rest of the SYDE courses (non-422) ======== Jobwise, it doesn't affect much. …”

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Check it elsewhere for Fall 2026

Calendar versions

Undergraduate Calendar