PMBus adds Intelligent Communications to Power Supplies

Behlman Electronics Inc. announced that it has added unprecedented high intelligence features to its industry-leading VPXtra™ 1000CD, dual output power supplies, thereby creating the VPXtra™ 1000CD-IQ. This intelligence upgrade gives VPX system designers the capability to create more compact systems with fewer additional instruments needed to accomplish their communication, measurement and control functions.

According to Behlman’s President, Ron Storm, “Contrary to what many people think, a power supply can do a lot more than just supply power. As we watched VPX system designers working towards ever-smaller systems with more capabilities, we realized that some of the systems’ required communication, measurement and control functions could be integrated into our VPXtra™ Power Supplies, to save space and improve system functions. I congratulate the Behlman engineers for their visionary approach, which made the world’s highest power VPX power supply also the most intelligent.”

VPXtra™ 1000CD-IQ is Vita 62 compliant, and designed to power Open VPX modules. Its dual outputs offer 960 Watts of 12 Vdc and an auxiliary 3.3 Vdc. Standard features include overvoltage, over current, short circuit and thermal protection, and the 12 Vdc output can be paralleled for higher power and fail-safe redundancy. It’s “IQ” capabilities include the ability to monitor and report all output voltages; output current; input voltage; input current; and temperature. It also supports ANSI/VITA 46 signals for geographical addressing, NVMRO (Non-Volatile Memory Read Only) and SYSRESET.

Other features include user-adjustable warning/fault levels for voltage, current and temperature; inventory management information such as part numbers, serial numbers, and revision status; SMBALERT # signal to alert system controller of a power supply fault; over 200K user storage memory for settings and information; extensive PMBus command set and status registers support.