Vicor Debuts VICBrick Family of Quarter-Brick DC Converters
Vicor Corp. (Andover, MA) announced its new VICBrick family of high-performance dc-dc converters that conform to industry-standard, quarter-brick footprint and pin outs. The VICBricks feature a V-I Chip-set, a pre-regulator module (PRM) and a voltage transformation module (VTM), surface-mounted on a quarter-brick interposer board. The VICBrick lets users begin to take advantage of V-I Chips while using the established through-hole dc-dc converter quarter-brick format.
The D048C Series of VICBricks operate from an input voltage of 36 Vdc to 75 Vdc and meet the basic insulation requirements of 2,250 Vdc input to output. The initial standard VICBrick outputs include 1.0 V, 1.2 V, 1.5 V and 1.8 V at 80 A; 2.5 V at 60 A; 3.0 V and 3.3 V at 45 A; and 5 V at 30 A. Output voltages can be easily trimmed up or down over a wide range. The 1.0 V and 1.2 V units are rated at 100 A for up to 100 µsec. Double output pins are used for output currents over 50 A.
Full-load efficiencies range from 83% at 1.0 V to 93% at 5.0 V, and operation is specified for up to 100 °C case temperature. Even with the speed limitations of the quarter-brick format, the response of the VICBrick to a 50% step change in load is less than 100 µsec. The PRMs and VTMs may be surface mounted directly to system boards to support higher bandwidth applications with a total dc-dc converter current density of up to 50 A/in², and with a mounting height of only 0.25 in.
Pricing for the VICBricks is $70.00 for 1,000-piece quantities. Pricing for the PRM/VTM SMD chip-set is $60, also for 1,000-piece quantitiess. Production quantities are 8 to 10 weeks.
