Distributed Power Architecture Concepts

For critical electronic equipment applications such as PBXs (Private Branch Exchanges), system reliability is as important an index of performance as equipment first cost. To minimize the effects of power failures on overall reliability, duplicate systems may be used to power the same loads. However, in today´s tight economy, such redundant configurations are often not a cost-effective alternative. Distributed power architectures are designed to meet this dual challenge of low cost and high reliability. A distributed powering arrangement divides the system load into several groups, each powered by its own power conversion unit, to limit the effect of isolated power component failures on total system operation. The result is an economical fault-tolerant system. This paper discusses cost and reliability factors for distributed power architectures.