The Right Power Supply Can Increase Reliability
Most embedded computing systems in the market today have high availability. Their downtime is as low as 0.001% every year. If you translate this into time, it is not more than a few minutes. But it is not easy to power such a system. You need a special power scheme.
On the opposite end, embedded systems use different kinds of form factors and bus architectures. There are many standards in the industry which have their own special power requirements. Even the bus architectures that follow these standards work need certain power supplies.
In many cases, you have no choice but to requisition a custom power supply, like in the case of Versa Modular Europa bus (VME).
Earlier VME systems used wired and hard-mounted power supplies. But as telecommunication applications of VME systems increased, pluggable custom power supplies were designed. Still, there are no specific form factors or connectors for VME power supplies.
The lack of standard means there is no common ground between the products of different power suppliers. Let’s not forget that systems also differ in the form factor they use.
But regardless of the standard or form factor used on an embedded system power supply, there are two important questions that gauge the utility of a power supply. First, is the power supply able to hot-swap? Second, can it handle current sharing? In this instance, a custom power supply is your best bet.
