FSP Aurum Gold 700 Power Supply Review

Primary Analysis

On this page we will take an in-depth look at the primary stage of the FSP Aurum Gold 700. For a better understanding, please read our Anatomy of Switching Power Supplies tutorial.

This power supply uses one GBU1506 rectifying bridge, which is attached to an individual heatsink. This bridge supports up to 15 A at 55° C so, in theory, you would be able to pull up to 1,725 W from a 115 V power grid. Assuming 80% efficiency, the bridge would allow this unit to deliver up to 1,380 W without burning itself out. Of course, we are only talking about this component, and the real limit will depend on all the other components in this power supply.

Figure 10: Rectifying bridge

The active PFC circuit uses two IPB60R165CP MOSFETs, which are capable of delivering up to 21 A at 25° C or up to 13 A at 100° C (note the difference temperature makes) in continuous mode, or up to 61 A in pulse mode at 25° C, each. These transistors present a 165 mΩ resistance when turned on, a characteristic called RDS(on). The lower this number the better, meaning that the transistors will waste less power and the power supply will achieve a higher efficiency.

The capacitor used to filter the output of the active PFC circuit is Japanese, from Rubycon, and labeled at 105° C.

In the switching section, FSP decided to use a very unique design, called active clamp reset forward, and it seems that FSP put a lot of effort in developing this design. The switching transistor is an SPA17N80C3 MOSFET, which is capable of delivering up to 17 A at 25° C or up to 11 A at 100° C (note the difference temperature makes) in continuous mode, or up to 51 A in pulse mode at 25° C. This transistor presents a 290 mΩ RDS(on). A second transistor (resetting transistor) is used to turn off the switching transistor and is controlled from the secondary side.

Figure 11: Switching transistor, resetting transistor, active PFC diode and active PFC transistors

The primary is controlled by an FSP6600 PFC/PWM combo controller, which is either developed by FSP or a rebranded integrated circuit. In either case, we couldn’t find more information about it.

Figure 12: Active PFC/PWM combo controller

Now let’s take a look at the secondary of this power supply.