ARTESYN TECHNOLOGIES AND EMERSON
NETWORK POWER’S ASTEC POWER ANNOUNCE
INITIATIVE TO DEFINE DIGITAL POWER
MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL OVER I2C BUS
Industry-wide effort for standardizing power systems control
New PMbus™ digital protocol to enable
open architecture for power systems control
Framingham, Mass., October
5, 2004 - - Artesyn
Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATSN) and Astec Power, A business of Emerson (NYSE:
EMR) jointly announced today that they have formed a coalition of leading power
supply and semiconductor manufacturers that have agreed to develop and support
a new communications standard defining an open architecture for power systems
control. The digital protocol, referred to as “Power Management Bus” or PMBus™,
will be implemented over the industrystandard I2C serial bus.
The founding group is
composed of a core set of enabling companies from both the power supply and semiconductor
industries. “Kicking off the initiative with market-leading, innovative
companies such as these establishes the critical mass required to ensure
success,” said Todd Hendrix, VP Worldwide Marketing with Artesyn. In addition
to the power supply manufacturers, semiconductor participants include Intersil
Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL), Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHP), Texas Instruments
(NYSE: TXN), Volterra Semiconductor (NASDAQ: VLTR), Summit Microelectronics and
Zilker Labs Inc.
Bharat Shah, VP
Marketing-DC/DC Products for Emerson Network Power’s Astec Power division said “Having
a truly open standard communication protocol is a must for industry-wide
acceptance of digital architectures, and Astec Power is delighted to be a part
of this working group.”
The growing complexity of
power systems control is changing the way power solutions operate. In order to
satisfy these requirements, the coming generation of power conversion
solutions, both traditional isolated “bricks” and non-isolated point-of-load
converters, will be intelligent and offer the capability for programming and
control, as well as real-time monitoring. The protocol for communicating with
these future converters will be critical. The PMbus digital protocol
establishes an open, industry standard communication format to support these
future products.
While there are existing
products and emerging solutions for power system management, the Pmbus digital
protocol addresses the desire of OEM customers to have open standards that
result in multisourced products; it offers a much more viable alternative to
the proprietary communication schemes and single-sourced solutions that are
beginning to emerge. OEM customers will continue to be able to design their
systems using discrete components or turnkey converter solutions. However,
unlike today, once the new protocol is adopted, the OEM will be able to control
all compliant converters using the same set of commands, without the need for
proprietary silicon.
The PMbus digital protocol
will encourage continued product innovation by removing a primary barrier; lack
of a communications standard. At the same time, it increases the opportunity
for differentiation of power conversion products based on features,
performance, and size. The protocol is scalable, initially allowing for the
control of more than 100 converters. Additionally, its flexibility eliminates
the need for mandatory control ICs and/or proprietary communications software
interfaces.
The first revision of the
PMbus digital protocol specification is now in the final stages of completion.
The details will be released within the next 45 days. At that point, it will be
circulated to the industry for review and further comments. An overview of the
new power management protocol was recently presented at the Darnell Group’s
Digital Power Forum 2004 held in San Jose, California September 13-15 in a
white paper by Robert V. White, Staff Engineer in the Artesyn R&D group.
For more information, go to http://digitalpower.darnell.com/digitalpower/.
ends
About Artesyn
Technologies, Inc.
Artesyn Technologies, Inc.,
headquartered in Boca Raton, FL., is a world leader in designing and manufacturing
power conversion solutions for industry-leading OEMs in communications and IT infrastructure
markets and is one of the foremost providers of controllers and WAN/protocol
software for worldwide Teledatacom™ networks and real-time communication
applications. The Company has a global sales reach with design and
manufacturing facilities in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Artesyn is
a public company whose common stock is traded on the NASDAQ stock market under
the symbol ATSN. For more information about Artesyn Technologies and its
products, please visit the Company's web site at www.artesyn.com.
About Emerson Network Power
Emerson Network Power is an Emerson
(www.goemerson.com) business that provides a full spectrum of reliable power
solutions, including inbound power, connectivity, power supplies, power systems
and precision cooling, backed by the largest global services organization in
the power industry. These Emerson companies serve the needs of
telecommunications networks, data centers, health care and industrial
facilities worldwide. For more information, visit www.emersonnetworkpower.com.
About Astec Power
Astec Power (www.astecpower.com), an Emerson Network
Power company headquartered in Carlsbad, CA is a leading international supplier
of power conversion solutions. Dedicated to advanced research and development,
state of the art design, sophisticated automation and in-process testing, Astec
Power produces standard, modified standard and custom AC-DC and DC-DC power
supplies, which range in size from one to 7,500 watts. In order to satisfy and
continue to grow its international customer base, Astec Power has operations on
three continents. Through this strategic allocation of its manufacturing
resources, Astec Power delivers competitively priced quality products
worldwide, in a timely and reliable manner.
About Intersil
Intersil Corporation, a NASDAQ-100 Index company, is
a leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog
semiconductors. The company’s products address three of the industry’s fastest growing
markets: flat panel displays, optical storage (CD and DVD recordable) and power
management. Intersil products include power management devices for battery
management, hot-swap and hot-plug controllers, linear regulators, supervisory
ICs, switching DC-DC regulators and power MOSFET drivers; optical storage laser
diode drivers; DSL line drivers; video and high performance operational
amplifiers; data converters; interface ICs; analog switches and multiplexers;
crosspoint switches; voice-over-IP devices; and ICs for military, space and
rad-hard applications. For more information about Intersil or to find out how
to become a member of our winning team, visit the company’s web site and career
page at www.intersil.com.
About Microchip Technology
Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHP) is a leading
provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, providing low-risk
product development, lower total system cost and faster time to market for
thousands of diverse customer applications worldwide. Headquartered in
Chandler, Arizona, Microchip offers outstanding technical support along with
dependable delivery and quality. For more information, visit the Microchip
website at www.microchip.com.
About TI
Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative
DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real world signal processing
requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company's businesses include
Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is
headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales
operations in more than 25 countries. Texas Instruments is traded on the New
York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the
World Wide Web at www.ti.com.
About Volterra Semiconductor
Corporation
Volterra Semiconductor Corporation, headquartered in
Fremont, CA, designs, develops, and markets leading edge silicon solutions for
low-voltage power delivery. The Company's product portfolio is focused on
advanced switching regulators for the computer, datacom, storage, and portable
markets. Volterra operates as a fabless semiconductor company utilizing
world-class foundries for silicon supply. The company is focused on creating
products with high intellectual property content that match specific customer
needs. For more information please visit http://www.volterra.com.
About Summit Microelectronics, Inc.
Founded in January 1997, Summit is a privately held,
well funded fabless semiconductor company headquartered in San Jose,
California. Summit specializes in the design and manufacture of integrated circuits
that incorporate both analog and digital technologies, focusing on products that
ensure system power integrity with configurable intelligent power management
platform solutions, Summit Microelectronics is the leading supplier of
integrated circuits for programmable power management platform solutions to the
communications, computing, automotive, consumer and military markets. For more
information please visit www.summitmicro.com.
About Zilker Labs Inc.
Zilker Labs, a fabless semiconductor company,
develops innovative mixed-signal power management and conversion IC solutions.
Zilker Labs’ proprietary Digital-DC™ technology brings unprecedented levels of
integration and performance to embedded applications such as datacom, telecom,
industrial control and other rack-based systems. Based in Austin Texas, Zilker
Labs is funded by Sevin Rosen Funds and North Bridge Venture Partners. For more
information please visit www.zilkerlabs.com.
PMbus and Teledatacom are
trademarks of Artesyn Technologies, Inc.
I2C Bus is a registered
trademark of Philips Electronics N.V.
Digital-DC is a trademark of Zilker Labs Inc.