Datasheet Directories

AC-DC Power Supplies (2020)

Written by Jeff Child

Tailored Solutions

In recent years, there’s been an increasing trend toward new AC-DC power supply products that have some sort of application or industry focus. The result has been supplies that include either certifications, special performance specs or tailored packaging intended for a specific application area such as medical, industrial, networking and more.

  • AC-DC power supplies

  • AC-DC power supplies

System designers can no longer afford to make their choice of AC-DC power supplies an afterthought. As embedded systems pack ever more processing into smaller spaces, power has direct implications on the size, cooling and mobility of a board- or box-level system. Mix in the challenges of multi-voltage electronics and the complexity of distributed system architectures, and it’s clear that embedded system designers need solutions that address those needs.

If you look at the power supply products released over the last 12 months, there’s been a definite uptick in new products that have some sort of application or industry focus. While this hasn’t diminished the role of general-purpose power supplies, the trend has been toward supplies that include either certifications, special performance specs or tailored packaging intended for a specific application—and medical is one such application area.

Medical applications face strict regulatory requirements. Power supplies used in these applications must provide the characteristics to meet the necessary standards for medical use in a hospital (Figure 1). The worldwide ES/IEC/EN 60601-1 3rd Edition standard provides guidelines. These are more stringent compared to guidelines for commercial or industrial appliances. To feed the needs of medical equipment developers, power supply vendors are building medical grade AC-DC power supplies that provide reinforced isolation with two means of patient protection (2xMoPP), low leakage (BF and CF ratings) and other medical specific features.

Shown in the product gallery on the following pages are representative examples of AC-DC power supplies. The gallery shows a mix of products spanning a wide range of sizes, formats and voltage configurations. Some AC-DC supplies offer certifications specifically tailored to specific markets like medical devices. Others feature special cooling schemes and wide temperature specs enabling, them to be used in harsh environment applications. 

FIGURE 1
Power supplies used in medical applications must provide the characteristics to meet the necessary standards for medical use in a hospital or residential home. These are more stringent compared to guidelines for commercial or industrial appliances.


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Former Editor-in-Chief at Circuit Cellar | Website | + posts

Jeff served as Editor-in-Chief for both LinuxGizmos.com and its sister publication, Circuit Cellar magazine 6/2017—3/2022. In nearly three decades of covering the embedded electronics and computing industry, Jeff has also held senior editorial positions at EE Times, Computer Design, Electronic Design, Embedded Systems Development, and COTS Journal. His knowledge spans a broad range of electronics and computing topics, including CPUs, MCUs, memory, storage, graphics, power supplies, software development, and real-time OSes.

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AC-DC Power Supplies (2020)

by Jeff Child time to read: 2 min