Articles

By Gary Tornquist, Senior Consulting Engineer, Product Safety Consulting, Inc

By Dec. 12, 2020 two major regions of the world, Europe and Canada/U.S., will have transitioned to an IEC 62368?1 Audio/video, information and communication technology equipment ? Part 1: Safety requirements ?based standard, replacing both IEC 60065 and IEC 60950?1.  However, concerns have been raised regarding the risk of electrically caused fire from low DC voltage power transfer protocols such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) 3.0 and Power Over Ethernet (PoE) as their maximum power levels approach 100 Watts.  Unfortunately, the two major markets have decided on divergent requirements for these interfaces, complicating the compliance picture. 

Europe will require such interfaces meet the voltage and current limits existing in IEC 62368-1 which may be more restrictive than the older standards which are being replaced.  On the other hand, for the U.S. and Canada, Clause 5 of IEC 62368?3 has essentially been made optional for these power transfer applications, which will make it easier for existing designs to comply. 

For more details Underwriters Laboratories has published a background document here:

https://www.ul.com/offerings/62368-1-hazard-based-safety-standard

or contact Product Safety Consulting, Inc for specific questions on meeting these emerging requirements for your products.