> BIG
PICTURE
The Power Behind Vicor Packaging Q
: How would you characterize the evolution of Vicor within the power electronics domain, and what was the driving force of this evolution? Vicor has been on the forefront of power delivery network (PDN) performance for decades by continually innovating on four essential technology pillars, spanning power delivery architectures, control systems, topologies and packaging. Each pillar has multiple layers and all are essential to advancing the performance of Vicor power modules. However, the innovations in power system architecture, control systems and topologies would have little impact apart from the central pillar of packaging. Without innovating power module packaging technology, the industry-leading advances in power density, current density and efficiency could never be realized. Power module packaging is a unique differentiator for Vicor and has been a core competency since the company’s inception. From its first Brick product to today’s ChiP™, Vicor has been continually innovating its packaging technology to deliver better solutions for power systems engineers.
Q
: What was the genesis of the Vicor product portfolio in terms of power packaging?
Figure 1 — Vicor Maxi, Mini and Micro DC-DC Bricks revolutionized power systems design in the 80's with a new high-power-density module package consisting of an overmolded board assembly mounted onto a baseplate for heat extraction.
> MARCH 2021
Eric Wong
Vice President|Sales Asia Pacific|Vicor
Every innovation begins with a spark of an idea, of how technology can improve performance to better meet customer challenges. Sometimes innovations are ahead of the curve, and it takes time before early adopters comprehend the full potential of the innovation. This is what happened with the Vicor modular power component concept that brought the DC-DC converter module to market as a building block for designing advanced power system solutions in the 80s. Vicor modules were way ahead of the competition in terms of density and efficiency and they were packaged in a format that resembled a brick—hence the name Bricks. The Brick consisted of an overmolded circuit board assembly mounted onto a baseplate for optimal thermal management. This was a highly differentiated approach to power conversion, and Vicor Bricks drew interest from early adopters in the emerging communications, defense and industrial markets. Power system engineers realized that a decentralized, modular approach to their power system design would allow them to handle the increasing number of loads in their system and that Bricks had many advantages over bulky, centralized, multi-output power supplies. In fact, the advent of the Brick was key to the development and acceptance of distributed power architecture at the time. This new power module provided a flexible, scalable solution which was essential for advanced power systems design. Vicor continued to drive the evolution of the Brick package by being the first to market with the Half-Brick and then in the 90s the first to offer the Quarter-Brick.
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