Chesterfield-based DSP Design has gained PowerDsine approval for its Poet 6000 Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) PC, the first PC to do so.

“It is a huge marketing advantage if you get on PowerDsine’s approve list of vendors,” DSP’s sales director Don Findlay told EW.

PoE devices have to meet IEEE802.3fa, which includes a 12.9W power limit at the user end.

“You want to be able to see the screen, and that takes 7W in the TFT we use,” said Findlay. “Then the PC circuit takes 5W, including a 300MHz Geode processor from AMD, leaving about a watt of headroom.”

Not all PoE devices meet the power specification, which is why approval by 802.3fa PSU maker PowerDsine is important: “There are some dodgy ones out there,” said Findlay.

PoE power is 15.4W at between 36 and 57V at the sending end, over up to 100m of Cat 5 cable and RJ-45 jacks, which together lose up to 2.5W.

www.dspdesign.com