The new safety standard
IEC/EN/UL 62368-1 is the new safety standard with a broad scope that covers ITE, communication technology, audio/video & similar type of equipment.
It is a convergence of safety standards to replace IEC 60950 & IEC 60065 as the technologies also converge. The new standard adopts a hazard-based safety engineering (HSBE) approach/standard rather than applying specific safety requirements for specific product types.
HSBE adopts a 3 Block model which, identifies energy sources in the product, classifies the energy and potential to cause injury or damage, identifies the required safeguards for protection from energy sources with the potential to cause injury or damage and qualifies the safeguards as effective.
Trouble-Free Transition
While the implementation date has been postponed from June 2019 until December 2020, equipment being placed on the market today should be approved under the new 62368-1 standard or face re-approval in the short term with the associated resource and financial costs. It also makes sense to re-certify existing equipment well ahead of the deadline to make for a trouble free and smooth transition come the end of 2020.
To ensure that our customers are best placed to negotiate the transition to 62368-1, the majority of our products are already certified to the new standard with the remainder scheduled for completion in the early part of 2019.
All our new product releases carry certification to both 62368-1 & 60950-1 to ensure that we can support approval requirements outside of North America and Europe where the 62368-1 standard is yet to be adopted and the 60950-1 certification for existing products is maintained.
This approach provides the ultimate assurance and flexibility for end equipment manufacturers and designers, safe in the knowledge that the power supply certification supports all safety approval legislation, regardless of target markets and the withdrawal of EN 60950 at the end of 2020.
Gary Bocock
Gary is a seasoned electronics engineer and a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET). With over three decades of experience in the power supply industry, he has held design, development, applications and management roles. For over 25 years, Gary has been a key figure at XP Power, where he has held various engineering and management positions, ultimately rising to the role of Technical Director.
