Application Flexibility of a Low-Loss High-Frequency Inductor Structure

Abstract

Miniaturization and improved performance of power electronics today are limited by magnetic components, which are difficult to scale to small size and high frequencies. Inductor structures using field shaping, quasi-distributed gaps, and modular construction have recently been shown to achieve low loss at HF. Nevertheless, for widespread adoption, it must be shown that such structures can continue to achieve low loss across applications and can also be produced economically. This work demonstrates that the previously-proposed inductor structure with the listed design features can cover a wide range of inductance and power handling requirements with only a few sets of manufactured core pieces. In particular, while conventional core sets are usually scaled by roughly 2x in volume, core set components for the proposed structure can be scaled by 4x in volume and still achieve high performance across a large, continuous range of inductor requirements. The proposed inductor structure and design techniques thus have potential for commercial adoption to facilitate the design of low-loss HF inductors.