Digitally-Controlled 420W PMBus compliant Isolated Quarter Bricks

Murata today announced the DBQ series of isolated digitally-controlled dc-dc converters developed by Murata Power Solutions. Incorporating a 32-bit ARM7 Processor, the 420-Watt regulated DBQ0135V2 model is the first in this series of dc-dc converters to include a PMBus™ compatible digital interface. The DBQ series is packaged in the industry standard quarter-brick format incorporating the Advanced Bus Converter (ABC) pinout for PMBus™ communications to an isolated dc-dc converter. The DBQ0135V2 is an isolated, regulated, 420W-12Vout quarter-brick that supports the TNV input voltage range of 36V-75V with a typical efficiency of 95.2%. To achieve this level of performance, the DBQ utilizes a 32-bit ARM7 processor and proprietary firmware to control all critical functions of the module. The module provides a digital interface (ABC pinout) supporting the PMBus™ standard for digital power management in systems used in applications such as MicroTCA, servers, storage, networking equipment, PoE wireless networks, and industrial and test equipment.

The PMBus™ interface facilitates power management features not previously available in an isolated, modular, quarter-brick dc-dc converter. By interfacing the DBQ to the system’s I2C bus, a systems engineer can monitor critical system level performance requirements that include Vin, Iin, Vout, Iout, and operating temperature. The PMBus™ can also be used to set warning flags for temperature, Vin, Vout, and Iout, and allows the user to customize parameters such as Vout, Vin turn on/off thresholds, output over voltage protection, output current limit, and ramp up characteristics, to name a few.

The DBQ series “droop” load sharing option that allows connecting three modules together in parallel for demanding power-hungry applications or to provide redundancy in high-reliability applications. The converter also offers input to output isolation of 2250Vdc as required for Power over Ethernet (PoE) applications.

A GUI (Graphical User Interface) and evaluation boards are available to assist the power engineer in designing a state-of-the-art power system. Typical applications for the DBQ series include Distributed Power Architectures (DPA) and Intermediate Bus Architectures (IBA) in MicroTCA, data center, server, storage, networking, wireless base stations, fan trays, and industrial and test equipment applications.