New Industry Products

Picor Introduces Cool-ORing High-Side Active ORing Solutions for 48 & 12V Applications

August 19, 2010 by Jeff Shepard

Picor, a subsidiary of Vicor Corp., announced the latest two additions to the Cool-ORing® Active ORing product family. Geared towards 12 and 48V high-side redundant bus applications, the PI2127 is a full-function Active ORing solution and the PI2007 is a universal high-speed discrete Active ORing controller. These new Picor Active ORing solutions address a broad range of redundant intermediate bus requirements for high-availability systems such as servers, high-end telecommunications and computing, and communications infrastructure systems.

The PI2127 is a complete high-density, full-function Active ORing solution with an integrated high-speed ORing MOSFET controller and a very low on-state resistance MOSFET. This integrated solution minimizes the system board real estate required to achieve the ideal ORing diode function, while minimizing overall design complexity. The PI2127, with its 8.5mΩ internal MOSFET provides very high efficiency and low power loss during steady state operation, while achieving very fast turn-off of the internal MOSFET, typically within 80ns, during input power source fault conditions that cause reverse current flow. Fault detection accuracy and speed are critical in limiting the exposure of the redundant bus to excessive voltage droops, as a result of very large induced peak reverse currents, that could ultimately bring the system down during low impedance power source failures.

The PI2127 is packaged in an extremely small, thermally enhanced 7 x 8mm land grid array System-in-Package platform, capable of delivering up to 12A over a wide range of operating temperature. The PI2127 is a 60V-rated solution with an integrated charge pump suitable for narrow-range high-side 48V bus applications. The PI2127 provides an active low fault flag output to the system during reverse current, excessive forward over-current and UVLO fault conditions.

The PI2007 solution is a universal high-speed high-side Active ORing controller IC designed for use with N-channel MOSFETs in redundant power system architectures. The PI2007 controller is optimized for use in 12 and 48V high-side redundant power architectures, including systems that have a wide range input voltage of 36 to 75V that are also required to operate during input voltage transients up to 100V for 100ms. The internal charge pump feature eliminates the need for a separate bias supply for high-side applications. The PI2007 controller enables an extremely low power loss solution with fast dynamic response to fault conditions, with 80ns reverse current turn-off delay time and 4A gate peak discharge current capability to turn off the MOSFET very fast. The PI2007 controls either single or paralleled MOSFETs to allow the flexibility of optimizing for different power levels. The PI2007 provides an active low fault flag output to the system during reverse current, excessive forward over-current and UVLO fault conditions. The PI2007 will also perform a FET-check upon initial power-up of the system to determine whether or not the MOSFET is shorted. When paired with the PI2003, which is optimized for low side operation, a complete high-side/ low-side chip-set solution can be enabled for wide-range 48V telecom applications.

"Picor’s Cool-ORing solutions can substantially reduce power dissipation by up to ten times versus conventional diode ORing solutions, eliminating the need for unnecessary thermal management overhead, while reducing board real estate by over 50% and achieving benchmark dynamic response versus conventional Active ORing solutions," said Carl Smith, Director, Strategic Marketing and Business Development.

The PI2127 full-function solution is available at $4.66 in 1,000-piece quantities. The PI2007 is available in a 3 x 3mm 10-lead TDFN and sells for $1.61 at 1,000-piece quantities.