Vicor Debuts New Quarter-Brick IBC Family

Vicor Corp. (Andover, MA) announced the first members of its family of 48 Vin intermediate bus converter modules (IBCs). Offered in a standard quarter-brick format and operating from a 38 Vdc to 55 Vdc input, the IBC family consists of nine fixed-ratio standard models with nominal outputs from 3 Vdc to 48 Vdc (3 V, 4 V, 6 V, 8 V, 9.6 V, 12 V, 16 V, 24 V and 48 V) delivering up to 100 A or 600 W.

The IBCs incorporate V•I Chip Bus Converters (BCMs) into the quarter-brick standard as "VICs-in-a-Brick". The pin-compatible, industry-standard quarter bricks deploy either a single BCM, rated up to 300 W, or two parallel BCMs, capable of 600 W. Output current is limited by the pins of the quarter-brick to 50 A or 100 A, depending on the pin-out configuration. Efficiency of the IBCs ranges from 95 percent at 3 V to better than 97 percent at 48 V. Full power is available with only 200 LFM, 55 °C air without a heatsink. The BCMs respond to 100-percent step load changes in less than 1 ms. The proprietary sine amplitude converter technology provides zero-current and zero-voltage switching at a fixed, multi-megahertz switching frequency.

The VIC-in-a-Brick intermediate bus converters are priced starting at $0.11 per watt in OEM quantities. Sample quantities of the 3 V at 50 A/100 A, 9.6 V at 240 W/480 W, 12 V at 200 W/400 W and 48 V at 300 W/600 W models are available now.