Vicor VI Chip BCM Customer Evaluation Board - Manual (Page 3)

UG:001 vicorpower.com Applications Engineering: 800 927.9474 Page 3
Set Up
The Customer Evaluation Board should be set up as follows:
Note: Care should be taken to avoid reversing polarities if connecting to the opposite (solder) side of the
board.
+ IN, – IN
Connect a high-quality, low-noise power supply to the +IN and –IN terminals of the
Customer Evaluation Board. The interconnect leads should be heavy gauge and as short
as possible. Additional capacitance may have to be added on the evaluation board to
make up for impedances in the interconnect leads as well as deficiencies in the source. It
is important to remember that noise from the source, as well as any input source voltage
drops, will appear at the output of the BCM® multiplied by its K factor. Test points
4 (–IN) and 5 (+IN) can be used to monitor the input and are located on the PCB
adjacent to the input terminals.
+ OUT, –OUT
An electronic or passive load should be connected to +OUT and –OUT terminals of the
Customer Evaluation Board with short heavy-gauge leads. Most commercially available
electronic loads do not have current slew rates capable of fully exercising the BCM.
The Customer Evaluation Board can be connected directly to the application for which
the BCM is intended. However, the interconnect impedances between the Customer
Evaluation Board and the application can greatly affect the transient response. For
applications where transient response is critical, the user should consider mounting the
BCM directly to the target application PCB. Test points 6 (–OUT) and 7 (+OUT) can be
used to monitor the output and are located on the PCB adjacent to the output terminals.
Output Voltage Measurement Jack (J1)
This connector is provided to make accurate measurements of the output voltage of the
BCM. Many types of scope probes may be directly connected to this point if the probe is
equipped with a removable plastic sheath. To avoid creating ground loops when making
measurements of the output or input voltage, these measurements should be
made separately.
Paralleling
The paralleling and current sharing capability of the devices can be demonstrated
by stacking multiple Customer Evaluation Boards and interconnecting the inputs
and outputs with standoffs of sufficient current handling capability to create a
3-dimensional array. See Figure 3. When paralleling BCMs, the PC ports should be
connected together to ensure the outputs turn on simultaneously.