Intersil introduces the industry's first fully sealed 50A digital power module

     Intersil Corporation announced the introduction of the industry's first fully sealed 50A digital DC/DC PMBus power module. The ISL8272M is a complete step-down power module that supports industry standard input voltages of 12V or 5V and provides up to 50A output current, with four modules combined providing up to 200A output current. It provides point-of-load conversion solutions for advanced FPgas, ASics, processors, and memory in space-tight and power-intensive telecommunications and data communication applications. In addition, the device is ideal for high-end instrumentation, industrial and medical equipment. The ISL8272M is used in conjunction with Intersil's PowerNavigator™ graphical user interface to simplify system power conversion and configuration while helping speed up design.

     The complexity and performance of the latest FPgas and processors for wired, wireless and cloud computing systems is driving the number of voltage rails in systems. For example, some optical transmission systems have up to 60 power supplies on a single circuit board. This complexity requires a higher level of system intelligence and advanced digital power management, including telemetry and system monitoring, to ensure 99.999% uptime. The failure of telecommunications systems or routers has real economic implications. For example, when making an online purchase, data can be lost during transmission, so keeping the system up and running is crucial.

     The ISL8272M's digital control technology provides precision sequencing and system monitoring through the PMBus interface. The innovative ChargeMode™(ChargeMode) control architecture helps to achieve an uncompensated design that allows the power supply to remain stable against changes in output capacitance due to temperature, variation or aging. The ISL8272M control loop also provides a single-cycle fast transient response to the output current load step (commonly seen in FPGA and DSP processing power bursts).

     Mark Downing, senior vice president of Infrastructure and Industrial Power products at Intersil, said: "The high availability requirements of cloud computing require systems to monitor each power rail to maximize efficiency and reduce downtime. The highly integrated ISL8272M provides our customers with a digital power module solution with greater output current and intelligence to monitor and control power supply voltage, current, temperature and error status while dynamically optimizing system power efficiency."

     The 50A ISL8272M builds on Intersil's fourth generation of market-proven digital controller products and expands the existing 25A ISL8270M and 33A ISL8271M digital power module offerings, allowing customers to easily switch to power supplies with larger output currents. In addition, Intersil's fully hermetically sealed power module product line is compatible with all industrial pick and place equipment, enabling fully automated manufacturing.