From powering NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover to mission-critical defense platforms, Crane Aerospace & Electronics’ Interpoint® brand has supported some of the most important aerospace & defense platforms since Interpoint’s inception in 1969. Leveraging Interpoint’s known quality and reliability, Crane A&E has designed a new family of power conversion products equipped to meet new demands from the ever-evolving aerospace & defense industry.

Crane A&E is proud to present its new xMOR family of DC-DC power conversion products, which feature a 120W core architecture and a wide range of versatility. Learn more about Crane A&E’s new Interpoint xMOR product family in the below Q&A with Rich Buck, Crane A&E Chief Engineer, Modular Power.

Question: Why has Crane A&E created this new family of xMOR power conversion products?

Answer: Crane is the leader in hybrid power converters for legacy space and terrestrial applications, with our class H and K products. As the space and defense markets continue to evolve customers are looking to improve their capabilities with products specifically designed for their applications. Crane has introduced this new family of 120W converters to allow the customer to choose the model that best suits their application, whether it’s for traditional space, new space, hi-rel or commercial, at an appropriate price.

Q: How will these xMOR products support a wide range of aerospace & defense applications?

A: With the addition of our new cMOR and rMOR products, our offering should align well with newer, higher power systems demanding higher efficiencies, with wider input ranges. For example, our new cMOR converter is an excellent match for ground vehicles, missile systems and aircraft, offering improved performance over our class H products, and at a lower price. Our rMOR converter would excel in systems requiring higher efficiencies within a radiation sensitive environment, such as launch vehicles, strategic missile, LEO satellites and other types of low earth orbit spacecraft. Our traditional Class H and K hybrids excel for applications that require the utmost in reliability, with our class K hybrids offering guaranteed radiation performance of 100 krad total dose and 86 MeV LET for SEE.

Q: How will Crane A&E’s new xMOR product family support the evolving space industry?

A: As global interest in improving commercialization and the security of both LEO and GEO domains increases with technology advancements – there is a growing need to support our customers’ requirements to improve power system performance. Whether its higher power applications or to gain efficiency by leveraging smaller gauge wire to reduce satellite weight; our 120W xMOR family of products is helping to drive down launch costs.

Q: What type of improved performance is included in Crane A&E’s new xMOR product family? 

A: For legacy space requirements, Crane has introduced a new class K converter that can achieve 120 watts of output power (up from 100 watts), while increasing the maximum steady state input to 50 volts, which would work well for newer systems utilizing a 42V power bus. The class H converter is similar to the class K converter except for the guaranteed radiation performance.

Our cMOR and rMOR converters offer similar performance to the hybrid converters in highly efficient, non-compliant designs. The rMOR achieves radiation tolerance (30krad and 43MeV LET) using our radiation assurance plan and unit testing but with improved efficiencies.

Q: How has Crane A&E’s Interpoint brand leveraged past models to bring this new product to market?

A: Crane has taken the proven design of our legacy class H MOR converter and improved the performance by taking advantage of industry advancements in high reliability semiconductors and other critical components. For the sMOR product, we took the hMOR design and utilized our space proven radiation tolerant designs to replace critical radiation sensitive circuity, thus hardening the design.  We’ve also been steadily investing in improving our products, and have been awarded 8 new patents over the last 5 years.

Our cMOR and rMOR products utilize the same architecture as the sMOR and hMOR, but with improved technology such as GaN switching transistors, secondary side synchronous switching and polymer tantalum capacitors.  All of which helps to improve overall efficiency and lower cost. The circuits used within the rMOR are radiation tolerant to 30 krad and 42 Mev LET, tested at the Texas A&M cyclotron. Mechanically, the cMOR and rMOR are hermetically sealed, just like their class H & K counterparts.

We’ve also been steadily investing in improving our products, and have been awarded 11 new patents over the last 8 years. Many of the improvements made in the xMOR series utilize patented technologies.

The new product line brings along the best of Crane performance and reliability while adding significant performance improvements.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CRANE A&E'S INTERPOINT XMOR PRODUCT FAMILY