Ericsson Releases Eighth brick DC-DC Converter With Higher Output Power

Ericsson announced its new PKB4204B PI – rated at 12Vat 20A and available in three versions: through-hole, baseplate and surface-mount. The converter features an input voltage range of 36 to 75V and provides up to 240W of power or up to 20A of output current in an industry standard footprint and pin out. It is said to offer a typical 25% cost savings compared to a standard 240W regulated quarter-brick.

The product is aimed at existing quarter-brick customers aiming to power higher demanding applications without re-designing boards for larger products (e.g. quarter-brick), which is said to save time and cost and to make the transition process faster and simpler. Offering 240W in a compact 2.07in.² of area, the converter occupies what is described as approximately 38% less board space than an industry standard IBC quarter brick product and will find favor with customers facing challenging board space optimization issues and/or migrating from quarter-brick to eight-brick without compromising performance.

The most important application areas for the PKB4204B PI are datacom/networking, wireless networks, optical network equipment, server and data storage, ATCA and fan trays.

The converter meets the 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.

According to the company, the converter’s high efficiency reduces customer input power, reduces cooling required, and improves product derating in demanding environments. It is rated at over 95% efficiency at 53Vin from 25% to 75% load. It has a reliability figure of 1.3 million hours MTBF. The PKB-B series uses an advanced 14 layer PCB with a copper thickness of 3oz to achieve what is described as high efficiency and good thermal performance.

The electrical design is a line regulated full-bridge configuration with the control circuit on the primary side. Both the transformer and the output inductor windings are integrated in the PCB. The primary side is internally fed with an isolated flyback converter.