Distributed-Power Open Standards Alliance (DOSA) Defines Digital Standards

New DOSA Standard Expands Quarter and Eighth Brick Isolated Converter Standards to Give Manufacturers Backwards-Compatible Flexibility to Leverage Digital Power


DALLAS, TX--(Marketwire - June 23, 2010) -  The Distributed-power Open Standards Alliance (DOSA), a global association dedicated to bringing compatibility and standardization to the DC-DC board mounted power conversion market, recently approved specification standards for "Second Generation Single Output Pin DC/DC Converters with Digital Connections" for both the quarter and eighth brick format. These new standards maintain complete backward compatibility with the first-generation quarter and eighth brick standards, covering all types of isolated converters, including fully regulated and unregulated bus converters. 

The new standards add an I2C bus with Power Management Bus (PMBus™) protocol functionality along with two user configurable digital I/O pins to the existing standard pin-out. Digital power provides access to critical load information including current and voltage, enabling the system to monitor the power consumption at the highest possible resolution -- at the processor or load. 

"The DOSA charter for compatible and standardized DC-DC power conversion products now extends to digital power," said Mohan Mankikar, president of Micro-Tech Consultants. "Power design engineers worldwide can now adopt digital power solutions with confidence in multi-vendor sourcing efficiency to reduce risk and accelerate development schedules."

DOSA was founded in 2004, by Lineage Power and SynQor, to develop standards for DC-DC converters to ensure compatibility and facilitate second sourcing for customers. DOSA carries the mission of establishing standards over a broad range of power converter form factors, footprints, feature sets and functionality for both non-isolated point-of-load (POL) and isolated applications.

About DOSA

The Distributed-power Open Standards Alliance (DOSA) was formed to ensure future DC-DC product compatibility and standardization within the fragmented power converter market. Alliance members include founding members Lineage Power and SynQor as well as AcBel, Bel Power, Delta Electronics, Emerson Network Power, Ericsson Power Modules, FDK, Murata Power Solutions, NetPower Technologies, Power-One, TDK-Lambda and Wall Industries. The goal of the alliance is to establish customer interface standards early in the development cycle, which include form factors, footprints, pin-outs, feature sets and other parameters that will permit alternative sourcing. The alliance covers a broad range of power converters including non-isolated (POL), isolated applications, and intermediate bus converters. More information about DOSA is available at www.dosapower.com.

About PMBus

Aligned with DOSA, the PMBus is an open standard power-management protocol with a fully defined command language that facilitates communication with power converters and other devices in a power system. This standard allows for communication between devices based on both analog and digital technologies, and provides interoperability to reduce design complexity for power system designers. More information is available at www.pmbus.org.

Contact Information:

Contact:
DOSA
603-570-7533
www.dosapower.com