Digital power is an evolution that has been on the horizon for over 10 years and until now has been primarily driven by the telecommunications and server markets; however this is changing…quickly. Digital power is now moving outside of this sector, which in reality was limited to the top echelon of companies that had the resources to implement these solutions. This future growth was highlighted earlier in 2014 when IHS Technology released a report that digital power will grow 3.5-5X over the next 4 years depending on the technology – but most importantly the primary growth will come from outside the typical application group.
The growth is not happening because digital power is ‘nice to have’ in new systems, the growth is happening because it is moving to meet the requirements of many of the FPGAs and processors that drive new generations of products. This is not only going to throw a curve ball at the engineering community, but also the supply chain that manages this technology. No longer will common mechanical specifications be enough to facilitate a multi-source product.
With this rapid advancement in mind, CUI, Ericsson Power Modules, and Murata Power Solutions, three leading power supply companies, have teamed up to create a new visionary consortium. Architects of Modern Power (AMP Group) will define the future of intelligent, distributed, digital power ecosystems.
This is far from another standards group; this is a consortium of companies that will go well beyond typical specifications. When you look at the intermediate bus converter (IBC) and point of load (POL) devices in the market today, they are typically compatible with a standard footprint. Over that past 10 years there have been two groups creating these standards. The Distributed-power Open Standards Alliance (DOSA) has defined both IBC and POL, while the Point of Load Alliance (POLA) focused on POL supplies. These two organizations each defined mechanical structures for the power supplies: length, width, pin location, pin dimension, and pin definitions/functions. For the analog environment, that has worked fine and has allowed 15 companies within DOSA and 4 companies within POLA to provide power supplies that adhere to these definitions. They even have some non-members that provide mechanical matching products.
Digital power is a game changer, not only for the technology it can bring to the board, but also to the changes it brings to supply chain assurance programs. Now that you have power supplies that are digitally controlled, you also have configuration files that need to be programmed into these supplies. Considerations must be made beyond the mechanical specification. Configuration file incompatibility can cause manufacturing flow disruption when programming in a production environment. It is also important that the power supplies are compatible in the command structures that they use, otherwise catastrophic failure can happen.
This is exactly what the AMP Group will develop and support, a true multi-source product portfolio that is mechanically identical, feature identical, and configuration file compatible. The AMP Group is not focused on solutions for today only, the industry’s greatest challenge is to develop a technology road map for products that will create a digitally controlled power ecosystem in the future without causing a burden to the supply chain.
CUI, Ericsson Power Modules, and Murata are committed to bringing a solution to the market that will be unlike anything else before in order to meet the market’s quickly changing needs. For more information, please visit www.ampgroup.com.
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