New Industry Products

Power-One Presents New Z-One Digital IBA

January 26, 2004 by Jeff Shepard

Power-One Inc. (Camarillo, CA) announced the integration of power conversion, control and communications with its Z-One Digital IBA™ architecture, which provides a 50-percent reduction in printed circuit board (PCB) space and a 90-percent decrease in components, number of PCB traces and power system development time. The Z-One™ system provides an integrated solution for board-level power management.

The patent-pending architecture incorporates Z-POL™ dc-dc converters, the ZIOS™ operating system and the Z-One™ digital bus; all controlled by the digital power manager. The Z-One digital IBA architecture combines a multitude of parameters, such as output voltages, sequencing and protection limits that are user-programmed through a graphical user interface and stored in the digital power manager. The parametric information is used to program the point-of-load (POL) converters at system startup.

The Z-One™ digital bus provides synchronization and data over a single line to support bi-directional communications between the ZIOS™, digital power managers, digital pulse-width modulated (PWM) controlled Z-POL™ converters, and host system I2C communications. The high-speed bus can address all 32 Z-POL converters in a single communications cycle. The Z-POL converters utilize two Power-One ICs to integrate functionality, including digital PWM control, digital current-sharing and power system communications. The Z-POL converters provide power densities up to 52 A/in², from a 1.25 in x 0.3 in x 0.55 in (31 mm x 7.6 mm x 14 mm) vertically mounted, 20 A package. High-current densities will also be provided by 5 A, 10 A and 15 A converters, in a variety of packaging options.

Prototype pricing for the ZM7100 family of digital power management controllers starts at $12, and the ZY7100 POL converter family is priced from $10 to $20, depending on the model. Production availability is expected to be in the third quarter of 2004 with sample quantities for selected customers in the second-quarter of 2004.