everything PE recently interviewed Raj Radjassamy, Director, 5G & Wireless Segment at OmniOn Power. OmniOn Power delivers End-to-End Power Conversion Solutions.
Q. Can you tell us about OmniOn Power? When was the company formed and how has it evolved over the years?
Raj Radjassamy: At OmniOn Power, we serve customers in rapidly evolving, critical environments where information, access, and response times define their markets. We design, develop, and manufacture solutions to power and safeguard life’s everyday moments.
Our business has a long, established history (more than 30 years) centered around mission-critical power products and services. Back in our early days, our business was part of Bell Labs, where we were focused on powering the infrastructure needs of AT&T. For decades, we’ve leveraged our deep power and industry expertise along with our history of innovation to design and develop high-quality, reliable, and efficient solutions to address our customers’ evolving power needs.
Q. Can you tell us about your product portfolio?
Raj Radjassamy: We provide comprehensive, end-to-end products and solutions across the power landscape, from the building to the box to the board. We design, develop, and manufacture products that are in use from the first AC/DC power conversion step from an AC utility feed down to the 0.5 A or less point-of-load DC/DC converters on a printed circuit board – and everything in between. Our products range from large, 20,000A+ DC power plants powering today’s advanced 5G networks and high-performance data centers, to rectifiers and DC/DC converters powering industrial and medical lasers and EV chargers, to bus converters powering the latest AI applications, and the point-of-load modules powering high-performance processors and other board-mounted components. In addition, we provide life-cycle services with domain expertise that spans the industries we serve.
Q. What market segments do you cater to? Which segment is the largest for you?
Raj Radjassamy: OmniOn Power products can be found wherever power quality, reliability, and efficiency are essential. We’re powering the technology that’s behind today’s connected world, from the 5G networks to the advanced data centers driving AI, to industrial applications including EV charging, semiconductor test and measurement, robotics, and industrial lasers.
While our roots are in the telecom industry, we’ve expanded our market focus and customer base significantly in the data center and industrial markets to support the growing need for mission-critical power.
Q. AcBel acquired the Power Conversion Division of ABB in July 2023 and named it OmniOn Power. How has this rebranding helped in delivering innovative power solutions for evolving power needs?
Raj Radjassamy: While we have a new name in OmniOn Power, we’re no strangers to the power industry and the telecom, data center, and industrial markets we serve. We have a long, established history centered around mission-critical power products and services, and for decades, we’ve leveraged our expertise and our history of innovation to design and develop high-quality, reliable, and efficient solutions to address our customers’ evolving power needs.
Now, with our new name, we’re energized about our future and are well-positioned to continue to deliver innovative solutions for our customers. We’re as committed as ever to providing the quality, reliability, expertise, and partnership that we’re known for.
Q. OmniOn Power has always been at the center of powering wireless communications. Can you tell us more about the 5G power products and life cycle services offered by the company?
Raj Radjassamy: 5G wireless technology, unlike its predecessors, has well-defined use cases, each uniquely identified by throughput, latency, connectivity, and reliability requirements. Power is one of the critical elements that enable those requirements. With its vast knowledge of wireless technology, OmniOn Power has designed, manufactured, and delivered mission-critical DC power system solutions for macro cell towers and central office applications. In addition, we’ve created unique power solutions for small-cell radios, macro-cell radios, fiber optical backhaul equipment, routers, and switches. As part of providing added value to our customers, we also offer life-cycle services that include installation, commissioning, technical support, warranty support, repairs, upgrades and retrofits, preventive maintenance, and end-of-life services.
Q. How does OmniOn Power’s BPS-Flex power system enhance power efficiency?
Raj Radjassamy: At the heart of our BPS-Flex power system is our BP-series rectifier (the BP040AC48ATEZ). It’s a compact 2 kW rectifier developed with modern design techniques to deliver high efficiency (peak efficiency of 96% at 50% load), reliability, and power density. At the BPS-Flex system level, which includes the distribution system, design efforts were focused on reducing or limiting power loss to help deliver the maximum usable power to the load.
Q. What are the unique features of OmniOn Power’s Intelligent Distribution Bay?
Raj Radjassamy: The Intelligent Distribution Bay takes -48 V DC power from a primary source and allows it to be subdivided for use for multiple loads, each with its intelligent protective device that can be monitored in real-time. This provides increased visibility into system performance as well as reduced maintenance costs and improved uptime.
It also allows for lower upfront costs since intelligent monitoring features are integrated into each circuit breaker rather than the entire cabinet. This enables customers to “turn on” the advanced monitoring features as needed by each breaker instead of having to pay for a full bay of intelligent monitoring from day 1 install, potentially reducing both install cost and operating costs since the functionality is not required for every circuit right out of the gate. The Intelligent Distribution Bay allows for the remote monitoring of up to 160 individual or grouped loads.
With individual branch circuit monitoring, each circuit can be monitored and provide status updates for items including:
- On/off status
- Tripped circuits
- Breaker ampacity, current, size, and temperature
- Health status of the circuit breaker
- The number of trips and overload conditions
- Breaker serial number and manufacture date.
The Intelligent Distribution Bay also allows for power system scalability, with flexible configurations of up to eight 800-amp load panels with 20 circuits per panel to help customers easily expand their system to meet their future needs.
Q. Can you tell us about the role played by OmniOn Power in the fast-growing electric vehicle market?
Raj Radjassamy: With electric vehicles continuing to increase in prominence, an emphasis has been placed on building out the infrastructure to support increased deployments. At OmniOn Power, we’ve applied our experience and expertise in developing mission-critical DC power solutions and have developed a high-quality, highly reliable 30 kW rectifier specifically designed for use in DC fast chargers.
Q. What makes OmniOn Power's AC/DC rectifiers suitable for medical applications?
Raj Radjassamy: OmniOn Power has a long and reputable history in manufacturing purpose-built, custom power supplies to meet stringent specifications of mission-critical applications. Medical power supplies have special requirements including isolation, insulation, and leakage current which all must be considered during the design process, which we took into account when developing our MPE2000 medical-grade rectifier.
The isolation requirements of medical power supplies help prevent current from passing between components and can help prevent electrical shock and ground loops for current. The main safety requirement is to safely isolate hazardous voltages from patients and medical staff. The level of protection required depends on whether the protection is for the patient (means of patient protection, or MOPP) or the operator (means of operator protection, or MOOP). MOPP is usually more stringent.
The type of insulation required depends on the application of the medical power supply. For example, Type BF (body floating) equipment, which makes physical contact with the patient, like blood pressure monitors and ultrasound equipment, requires double insulation, 5 millimeters (mm) creepage, and 3,000 Vac isolation. Anything that touches the body should have thick plastic-based insulation.
These design considerations for isolation and insulation should allow for medical power supplies to have a very low leakage current. For example, UL60601-1 limits leakage to 0.3 mA from input to output for Class I equipment.
Our power supplies go through a significant period of evaluation and testing to ensure they meet the quality requirements of their end application.
Q. Can you tell us about OmniOn Power’s Edge Power Architecture and its impact on the functioning of data center companies across the globe?
Raj Radjassamy: Our Edge power architecture provides an innovative approach to data center backup power that can both unlock higher efficiencies and improve scalability – both in greenfield and brownfield facilities. The power architecture allows for either 480 V or low-line 200/208/240 V AC utility power to be fed directly into the top of the equipment cabinet. From there, all power conversion steps required take place directly in the cabinet. By running three-phase AC power directly into the cabinet, the total number of power conversion steps required can be reduced compared to a traditional AC architecture with an AC UPS and dedicated power room, further improving efficiency. This also brings power conversion closer to the load equipment being powered which reduces losses and further improves efficiency.
Inside of the power architecture, power equipment, battery backup, and the system controller are housed vertically along the inside edge of the enclosure, freeing up the bulk of the cabinet for networking infrastructure to be installed. By housing all power conversion inside of the cabinet along with networking infrastructure, the Edge power architecture can be leveraged for improved scalability to meet the increased capacity demands experienced in today’s advanced data centers. The power architecture is designed to be deployed across a data center, including on the data center floor, potentially making use of previously unused white space to increase both networking and power capacity.
You can learn more about our Edge power architecture and the efficiency and scalability benefit it can unlock both in AC-powered data centers and in DC-powered facilities here.
Q. How does 2024 look for OmniOn Power? Are there any new announcements or upcoming products?
Raj Radjassamy: 2024 is an exciting year for all of us in the technology and power space. 5G, and its new variant 5.5G (or reduced capacity 5G), continue to be deployed globally, innovations in data center power are helping to support the influx of AI applications in our everyday lives, electric vehicles continue to grow in prominence, requiring additional infrastructure to be built out, and Industry 4.0 is opening the doors to enhanced connectivity and data-driven industrial operations.
Throughout the rest of this year and into the next, we’ll be continuing to develop new power solutions to meet ever-evolving needs. We see AI and 5G connectivity as significant drivers of power innovation both now and in the future, and we’re constantly working to develop solutions to the power challenges applications like these present. You can see our latest new products and keep tabs on what’s coming by reading the latest news on our website.
About Raj Radjassamy
Raj Radjassamy is the director for the 5G and wireless segment at OmniOn Power, which designs, develops, and manufactures reliable, high-quality power solutions for mission-critical applications. He works closely with customers to understand and help address the toughest power challenges across their networks. Raj has a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of Arizona.
