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PowerLines by Linnea Brush
August 30, 1999
Following Industry Standards Can Be Detrimental to Your Health
Power Channels: Batteries and Portable Power, Switch-Mode Power, Automotive Electronics, Power Quality Protection, Renewable Energy, Communications Power, Motion Control, Power Components
One of the headaches of working in power supply manufacturing is keeping up with all the industry standards, initiatives, guidelines and specifications. UL, IEC, SBS, IEEE, Intel - the number of standards seems to be proliferating. The confusion is compounded when you have standards for systems, as well as components within the systems. Intel, for instance, has specific power management standards, such as ACPI, SBS, Mobile Power, etc. On the other hand, Cisco has "communications" initiatives that have implications for power. And then you have all the UL and IEC standards that relate to product safety and performance.
Does your company keep up with all the standards that come out? How many do they adopt? You should know this, not because you might be missing an important standard, but because adopting certain standards could be unnecessary and actually end up costing your company money.
The mere existence of a standard is not a reason to follow it. There are many standards that provide interoperability, but they are meaningless otherwise. They cannot be enforced, and there is no penalty for not following them. Most company "standards" fall into this category, such as Intel, Cisco, IBM, and so on.
On the other hand, if Intel releases its system power specifications and you want your power supply to work with Intel microprocessors, then you'd better follow the spec. The gray area comes when the standard applies to products generically, and you're not sure how many companies have adopted it.
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We would like to hear your comments on the topics discussed in this column. We welcome the opportunity to publish opposing opinions. Please email Jeff Shepard at jshepard@darnell.com.
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