Datel (Mansfield, Mass.) apparently doesn't think so and is taking a new form factor that's smaller than the eighth-brick very seriously. "We let it be known that this is what we are doing," said Bob Leonard, Datel's product manager, referring to a Power Sources Manufacturers Association meeting at the recent APEC trade show.

It's a bold move by Datel to establish still another de facto standard. But as Leonard sees it, the brick's advent means "the industry won't have to design this [sixteenth-brick] device twice."

Until now, many dc/dc converter makers have viewed the idea of a sixteenth-brick as too limited in a world where, as power levels drop, other alternatives emerge. As of the moment, no product exists at Datel, nor is there a customer. The company also isn't pinned down to a launch date.

Datel is actively pursuing the in-house design project, however, claiming that it calls upon some advanced magnetics and topological approaches to deliver a converter that in a single swoop addresses all previous industry concerns.

Apart from small size (0.9 x 1.3 inches, with 1-inch pin spacing), these include high output power (up to 50 watts at 0.9 to 5 volts) and a 4:1 input range for both 12- and 48-V-output models. This allows its applications to range from intermediate bus to military to telecom.

Yet, its small size will make the sixteenth-brick more like a third cousin to the eighth-brick, and maybe that's one rub: The sixteenth-brick is too small to be a direct pin-for-pin replacement for existing eighth-bricks.

Will the advantages of a sixteenth-brick be artificial, or will the new brick really become invaluable to future distributed-bus systems and the like? That's a major question. Off the record, there's some industry excitement, and minus the tinge of vinegar that often accompanies such advances-perhaps because there's no product yet. "Some ideas work, some don't," is the prevailing view, with the thought that perhaps more viable options already exist for lower power levels, and that the term "brick" is now forever a matter of semantics.