New Industry Products

500W Quarter-Brick Bus Converter Offered by Cherokee

March 22, 2006 by Jeff Shepard

Cherokee International has announced a 500W intermediate bus converter in a quarter-brick package. With 68 percent more power than the previous generation in the same quarter-brick size, the C-BUS (CBQ4248G1 model) delivers 42A at 12V nominal output at nearly 97 percent efficiency at full load without a heatsink. Specifically designed for datacom, networking, and ATE applications using a two-stage power conversion architecture (ac to 48Vdc and 48Vdc to 12Vdc), Cherokee's latest C-BUS converter provides an unregulated, 12Vdc isolated intermediate bus voltage.

The intermediate bus powers non-isolated, point-of-load (POL) converters or discrete converters that are downstream in a distributed power architecture and boasts an increased efficiency to minimize losses during the two-stage DC power conversion.

With an input of 42Vdc to 53Vdc and boasting a high power density of 336W per cubic inch, Cherokee International's latest converter operates as a smart dc transformer that runs open loop, providing a balance in maximizing efficiency and output current while minimizing the component count for an economical solution.

"The need for more power is a chain reaction starting with chip sets that draw more current and culminating with an increased current demand — at both the POL-bus and intermediate-bus levels," said Mike Wagner, vice president of marketing for Cherokee International. "To help equipment designers who are now faced with putting two converters in parallel to address the increased current demand, we've introduced the C-BUS (CBQ4248G1) intermediate bus converter with 68 percent more power than prior generation quarter-brick bus converters. The CBQ4248G1 is both an economical and space-saving solution that eliminates the need for equipment designers to specify two converters to meet increased power demands."

The C-BUS converter meets basic insulation requirements of EN60950 and comes complete with vital industry standard features such as remote on/off, over-temperature protection, output over-current and over-voltage protection, and input under-voltage protection. Other features include 1,500Vdc input to output isolation, no minimum load requirements, constant frequency operation for predictable EMI characteristics, low ripple and noise, and auto restart after fault shutdown. The C-BUS converter is offered in both open frame and base plate versions.

The C-BUS (model CBQ4248G1) is available in both positive and negative logic modules and is priced at $48 for OEM quantities. Samples are available now.