Cincon 8:1 Ultra-Wide Input DC/DC Converters
One Converter Platform for 12 V, 24 V, 36 V, and 48 V Systems
Designing power architectures for industrial, railway, and automation systems often means dealing with multiple nominal bus voltages across a product family. The traditional approach - specifying a different DC/DC converter for each voltage level - results in fragmented inventories, repeated qualification work, and limited design flexibility when requirements change.
Cincon's 8:1 ultra-wide input DC/DC converters address this directly. With an input voltage range of 9–75 V DC, a single converter series accommodates all four common nominal bus voltages – 12 V, 24 V, 36 V, and 48 V - within one platform. This simplifies both the design process and the supply chain, while providing genuine resilience against real-world voltage fluctuations that narrower-range converters cannot handle without additional circuitry.
Why Ultra-Wide Input Matters in Practice
Standard 2:1 or 4:1 input converters operate reliably within their rated range but require additional input protection or clamping circuits when the supply voltage deviates significantly - for example during battery discharge, generator startup, load dump events, or transient overvoltages in industrial environments.
The 8:1 input range eliminates this constraint. In a 24 V nominal system, the converter continues operating normally even if the input rises to 60 V or beyond for extended periods - without any external clamping circuit. In a 48 V system, a sudden brownout dropping the supply to 9 V will not interrupt the output. This continuous tolerance of abnormal voltage conditions is particularly valuable in applications such as battery-powered systems, UPS and emergency power supplies, photovoltaic installations, and railway infrastructure where input voltage behaviour is inherently unpredictable.
Available in Brick, SIP, and DIP Formats
The 8:1 ultra-wide input portfolio spans three package families, covering a wide range of power levels and board integration requirements:
Quarter-brick and half-brick formats are available for higher-power applications from 50 W to 150 W, with 3 kVac reinforced isolation on the quarter-brick series. These carry railway certification to EN 50155 and EN 61373, comply with UL/IEC 62368-1, and support an operating temperature range of –40 °C to +105 °C with an altitude rating up to 5,000 m. Selected models include advanced features such as configurable UVLO for battery deep-discharge protection, output voltage trimming from –20% to +15% of the nominal value, and a dedicated BUS pin for hold-up time functionality that reduces the required capacitor voltage rating and saves board space.
SIP-8 packaged models offer power levels from 1.65 W to 6 W with 3,000 V DC isolation and the same 9-75 V input range. These are suited to space-constrained board designs where the ultra-wide input flexibility is needed at low power levels. No-load consumption is as low as 0.144 W, and protection features include UVLO, short-circuit protection, and overcurrent protection.
DIP-24 packaged models cover 2 W to 6 W with up to 87% efficiency and 3,000 V DC isolation. A notable feature of this package is that EMI performance meets EN 55032 Class A without requiring any external components, with Class B achievable through a simple peripheral circuit. Protection features include UVLO, overvoltage, overcurrent, and continuous short-circuit protection.
Target Applications
The combination of ultra-wide input tolerance, railway certification on brick-format models, and broad package availability makes this portfolio relevant across a range of demanding application areas:
- Railway communication, control, and computing systems
- Industrial automation and robotics control
- Battery-powered systems, UPS, and emergency power supplies
- Photovoltaic systems and wind-solar hybrid installations
- 5G telecommunications infrastructure
- Instrumentation and defence electronics
Future-Proof Power Design
A key practical advantage of the 8:1 platform is design reuse. Because a single converter model covers all common nominal voltages, the same power design can be carried across product variants with different supply configurations, or adapted to new market requirements without a converter redesign. This reduces qualification effort, simplifies spare parts management, and shortens development cycles for follow-on products.
FORTEC Switzerland supports your project from initial converter selection through to series procurement. Our team advises on input/output configuration, certification requirements, and thermal design to help you identify the right Cincon solution for your application.