Vicor Corporation (NASDAQ: VICR) today announced the launch of its new AC to Point-of-Load Development Kit (“ACPoL DKit”). The development kit enables power system designers to immediately begin operating and evaluating a complete power system solution featuring the industry’s thinnest, highest performance, highest density power components, without the hassles and time penalties associated with designing and acquiring their own prototyping boards, system interconnects, energy storage and thermal management components.
The ACPoL DKit consists of an AC Front-End (“ACFE”) chassis, which receives power from the AC line and delivers up to 400 Watts of power via an isolated, regulated, distribution bus voltage, and a Point-of-Load (“PoL”) chassis, which receives the distribution bus voltage and generates three independent regulated PoL outputs. One version of the DKit features a 24 VDC distribution bus; another version features a 48 VDC bus. DKits include all necessary ancillary components, including a bus hold-up capacitor assembly and an AC line cord.
The ACFE chassis features Vicor’s AIM 1714 and PFM 4414 modular front-end components, each packaged in Vicor’s compact, thermally adept, 9 mm-thin, VIA package. The AIM module provides full-wave rectification, Class B conducted EMI filtering and input surge protection. The PFM, which receives its input power from the AIM, features power factor correction and delivers up to 400 Watts of fully isolated, regulated, 24 VDC or 48 VDC for powering downstream PoL regulators. The AIM/PFM combination enables power systems designers to instantly implement a full function AC-DC front-end system in a fraction of the space of conventional “1U” solutions. And, because the AIM and the PFM are each available in both board and chassis-mount configurations, systems designers can achieve maximum final system density by utilizing an available chassis as a mounting and cooling surface.
The PoL chassis features three independent PoL evaluation boards and a power input interface assembly. The power interface receives the regulated 24 or 48 VDC power from the ACFE chassis and distributes it to the three PoL evaluation boards. The three PoL evaluation boards comprise, respectively, a 3.3V, 5V and 12V PI33/PI35xx Vicor Cool-Power Zero-Voltage Switched (“ZVS”) Buck Regulator, packaged, respectively, in a 10×14 mm or 10×10 mm LGA SiP package. Capable of achieving power conversion efficiencies up to 96% while operating from a 48V distribution bus, Vicor Cool-Power ZVS Buck Regulators enable implementation of low profile PoL systems with unprecedented power density and end-to-end system efficiency.
The new ACPoL DKit provides everything necessary to begin testing and evaluating the features and benefits of Vicor’s end-to-end modular power systems solutions and the Power Component approach. Vicor’s “no surprises” Power Component Design Methodology and online PowerBench tools enable power systems engineers to rapidly design and implement complete power systems offering field proven reliability and predictability and industry-leading performance, density, efficiency and economy.
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