[November 4, 2020] – The Power Stamp Alliance (PSA), which is creating collaborative solutions for 48V-to-low-voltage on-board DC-DC power converters, today announced that LoadSlammer, designers and manufacturers of transient load testing devices, has joined the Alliance to bring the option for a consistent, standardized testing methodology to users of power stamps.
This is the first time that a multi-vendor alliance around dc-dc power conversion has agreed a testing methodology and tools. Design engineers will be able to use a common, consistent, and repeatable load to significantly reduce validation and integration time, speeding their end-product to market and reducing risk in the design process. LoadSlammer estimates up to 30 per cent saving in development time depending on the user’s specific configuration.
Power Stamp Alliance Founding Members, Advanced Energy, Bel Power Solutions, Flex, and STMicroelectronics have created and shared a specification for a standard product footprint and functions to create a multi-vendor ecosystem. This assures practical levels of alternate source capability to server and storage system manufacturers, while encouraging a competitive supply chain through differentiation in topology, circuitry, and performance from multiple, independent manufacturers. Power Stamp Alliance 48V direct conversion DC-DC modules – or ‘power stamps’ – primarily target advanced IT and supercomputing equipment and large data processing installations.
LoadSlammer is an innovative company that can help accelerate design and validation timescales by providing independent test tools for dc-dc power modules. Using LoadSlammer technology enables electronics design engineers to thoroughly evaluate power stamp implementations on their circuit boards quickly and independently of any power solution or semiconductor vendor. The compact and configurable LoadSlammer Test Tool suite allows designers of DC-DC power solutions, Power IC vendors, and ASIC/CPU manufacturers to collaborate, with measurable test data in an interchangeable format.
Background Information
Formally launched in 2018 with the publication of specifications, drawings and pin-out descriptions for main and satellite power stamps, the Alliance has since also published a new Orcad Library and Allegro Footprint Package (Macro) to its website to enable designers to embed Power Stamps into their own schematic, along with the linked Allegro reference footprint for proper layout. The Alliance announced the industry’s first graphical user interface (GUI) that developers can use with products from any member company, and a new reference design board for high-current ASIC and/or FPGA chipsets. Most recently, the Alliance released a Controller Stamp Specification.
PSA reference design boards, power stamps and the GUI are available from PSA member representatives, who can be contacted via the Power Stamp Alliance website http://www.powerstamp.org/contact/.
About the Power Stamp Alliance
The Power Stamp Alliance has been formed to define a standard product footprint and functions that provide a multiple sourced, standard modular board-mounted solution for power conversion for 48Vin to low-voltage, high-current DC-DC applications. These 48V single-stage, direct-conversion DC-DC modules – or ‘power stamps’ – primarily target devices being used in large data centers. These include ASICs, AI accelerators, FPGAs, GP-GPUs, ASSPs, CPUs, and network processors moving to lower geometry, such as 3nm technology. The Founding Members of the Power Stamp Alliance are Advanced Energy, Bel Power Solutions, Flex, and STMicroelectronics.
