Digital power consortium formed by CUI, Ericsson Power Modules and Murata

Three leading power supply manufacturers today announced the formation of a new power industry consortium, the Architects of Modern Power (AMP). The founding members are CUI, Ericsson Power Modules and Murata – all global players developing advanced power conversion technology for distributed power architectures.

The aim of the alliance is to create the most technically advanced, end-to-end distributed power solutions – a complete ecosystem of hardware, software and support. The advent of digital control in dc/dc converters and point-of-load regulators, driven initially by telecom and datacom companies experiencing a staggering rise in IP traffic and now proliferating into other industries, has made multi-sourcing of leading-edge power conversion products more difficult for customers. A level of software compatibility will be required in order to achieve a true multi-source solution, including compatibility of PMBus commands, proprietary controller commands, and configuration files. The AMP Group was formed to address this challenge.

The AMP Group’s work will extend well beyond defining mechanical dimensions and product footprints for intelligent dc/dc power modules and ac/dc power supplies. The consortium’s long-term strategic alliance will foster close collaboration between members to develop shared technology roadmaps. The consortium will:

• Offer supply chain security
• Provide customer choice
• Avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ for each new product
• Accelerate innovation
• Accelerate efficiency improvements

The participating companies will establish common mechanical and electrical specifications for their products, standardization of monitoring, control and communications functions, and create common configuration files for plug-and-play interoperability between products from each firm. The end result will be a true multi-sourced, high efficiency power ecosystem with exceptional supply chain reliability through continuity of production.

The AMP Group will offer:

• Supply assurance programs are a requirement by many customers and the advent of digital power complicates this requirement.
• Mechanical specifications alone will not allow for a digitally controlled power supply to be multi-sourced by another vendor, the software or configuration of the device must also be compatible.
• Close work to ensure that there is no disruption in supply chain or production flow. They will configure their power supplies so that a single configuration file can be used for all AMP compatible devices.
• Any AMP compatible power supply will have at least two companies that offer a version of that power supply.

Mohan Mankikar, President of Micro-Tech Consultants and a leading authority on the power supply industry, commented, “The AMP Group offers a higher level of collaborative effort for the development of advanced power solutions for the distributed power architecture, as it includes hardware, software and support compatibility among participants for a true multi-source business environment. In addition, it plans to collaborate on a shared long-term strategic technology roadmap, a proposition unique in the power supply industry.”

The AMP Group will announce its first set of standards, for digital point-of-load regulators and advanced bus dc/dc converters, at the Electronica show in Munich, November 11-14^th , 2014. It will also provide a technology and product roadmap for 2015 and beyond to stay ahead of the rapidly advancing power needs for next-generation equipment using distributed bus power systems.

For more information, visit www.ampgroup.com .