The new 'Power-Star' Future Electronics AC-DC Power Supply proof-of-concept development board implements advanced technologies at the power factor correction (PFC), conversion and rectification stages to achieve system-level efficiency of more than 94% under a wide range of load conditions.

The easily configurable board means that designers can implement in just a few hours a working, extremely efficient power supply for prototypes that consume between 100 W and 1 kW.

While evaluation boards separately for the PFC, conversion and rectification stages of a power supply are widely available from power IC manufacturers, Future Electronics is the first to introduce a development system that implements all three stages in one board.

Manufacturers are now facing up to an increased development workload as new regulations introduced by authorities in Europe, North America, China and elsewhere raise the minimum power efficiency requirements on mains-powered equipment.

The new 'Power-Star' AC-DC Power Supply board from Future Electronics exceeds all known minimum efficiency standards by a wide margin at full and low load, which means that designers can implement it in a proof-of-concept with confidence that it will comply with relevant regulations.

The board is also suitable for any design in the 100 W to 1 kW range that will benefit from a reduction in power losses and waste heat generation, and a consequent shrinking or elimination of heat sinking or other cooling mechanisms.

The board uses advanced techniques to minimise power losses at every stage of the power conditioning process. A dual-interleaved Boundary Conduction Mode (BCM) front end control IC, the Fairchild Semiconductor FAN9611, implements the required power factor correction functions.

LLC resonant converters are the most efficient technique for down-converting power supplies in the 12 V to 48 V range; the Future Electronics board uses a Fairchild FAN7621 LLC resonant conversion controller.

In the secondary circuit, synchronous rectification is being adopted in more and more designs because it offers a large reduction in power losses compared to conventional Schottky diode rectification. The Future Electronics board uses a new synchronous rectification controller from Fairchild, the FAN6208.

Future Electronics provides developers with a straightforward design tool for selecting values for peripheral components in order to optimise the board for supply voltages between 12V and 96V, and for peak power consumption ranging from 100 W to 1 kW.

As for every other Future Electronics proof-of-concept development board, the Gerber design files for the 'Power-Star' AC-DC Power Supply Board are available to users. This means that OEMs can use it as a reference board and quickly customise it to fit the precise requirements of their application.

The board is available free to qualifying customers of Future Electronics

Visit Future Electronics at www.futureelectronics.com