At PCIM Europe 2013, Vicor presented a paper describing how “Central Offices” for Telecommunications have been historically powered by a wide range, negative-referenced 48V distribution system. The need for simple, direct battery-power backup has been the main driver behind this choice, which is regulated by global organizations standards.
I interviewed Eric Wong, Vicor’s Vice President of Sales Asia Pacific to find out what was happening in the Chinese Market. There are so many news reports some of which can be misleading or confusing, that I thought it best to go direct to Vicor.
Vicor’s new AC Front End Module has an isolated, regulated output of 330 W at 48 Vdc. Its applications are many and varied, including powering rack-mounted equipment in telecommunications or data centres. However designers for such applications sometimes ask why the DC output has been set at 48 V rather than 12 V, or even 5 V?
At Embedded World 2013 Vicor introduced the PI34xx series of Cool-Power ZVS Buck Regulators optimized for 12 V operation (8 V to 18 Vin).
Design trends in the DC-DC converter module market are driving applications in communications (4G & LTE base-stations and fiber infrastructure) as well as the computing and server markets. These are applications that require the engineering community to acquire a deep technical understanding to overcome the many challenges before them.
With telecom and datacenters becoming ever more important to our work and leisure activities, the demand placed upon these applications is increasing dramatically. Every percentage-point increase in efficiency results in significant cash saving for the operator – and hopefully, the customer – in the cost of wasted power.
Mission Power Solutions, a Vicor Custom Power design center, has released its new Crossbow 1200 W DC-DC power supply.
Within telecommunications and data centres, continuing growth in processing equipment’s power demand is imposing evolutionary change on the power architecture that feeds it.
As rail voltages drop and currents increase, the key to efficient power delivery is use of higher voltages and DC conversion and distribution.
Even without any particular knowledge of the market the average man – or woman – on the street wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the unmanned systems market is being forecast to grow in the coming years.
