Get the message: Power-management protocol rides on industry bus

摘要

As system power requirements have increased in complexity for telecom and datacom applications, so have the communication requirements between the system host and its power subsystems. Power-supply and power-management-IC vendors initially re-sponded by developing proprietary communication and control schemes. However, an SIG (Special Interest Group) comprising power-management-IG and power-supply vendors, after about 18 months of planning, this year released the first version of the PMBus, an open standard for communication between host systems and the power subsystems. The PMBus Implementers Forum, which the System Management Interface Forum has now absorbed, originally developed the standard.