Basic research on magnetic materials makes great strides forward
Throughout the past ten years, the changes and development of magnetic components have been more concentrated in aspects such as production capacity, product shape, production efficiency, production technology, etc. Regarding the underlying basic material research, the development rate is actually not large.
However, with the rapid development of terminal fields such as new energy vehicles, supercharging, AI, and big data, the industry is in urgent need of high-performance magnetic materials. High-quality development has become an inevitable proposition for the development of the magnetic components industry.
So what are the "highlight moments" of magnetic materials in 2023?
01 97 materials
From the perspective of new energy market demand and technology development trends, magnetic components need to improve conversion efficiency while reducing losses and miniaturization. For ferrite cores, it is necessary to use high-quality, stable high-end powders, optimize the sintering process, increase the saturation magnetic induction intensity of the core, and reduce the power loss of the core to achieve miniaturization of the core.
At present, 97 material can be said to be the highest performance power magnetic material in the industry. The 97 material magnetic core has extremely high magnetic induction intensity Bs and low power and eddy current loss. It can be widely used in servers, charging piles, vehicle chargers and other fields, replacing traditional 95 and 96 materials.
02 Metal magnetic powder core
Metal magnetic powder core is a soft magnetic material with distributed air gaps. As various electronic products develop in the direction of miniaturization and miniaturization, with its excellent characteristics such as high saturation magnetic flux density, low loss, and good temperature characteristics, it can be more It can well meet the development requirements of high efficiency and high power density of electric energy conversion equipment in the new energy field.
With the popularization of new energy vehicles and the laying of large-scale charging piles, fast and high-power charging will become a new trend in consumer demand. The introduction of large-scale fast and high-power charging equipment requires flexible and intelligent transformation of the entire power grid power supply equipment. .
The rapid development of information industries such as big data and cloud computing has brought about the continued growth of high-power electrical equipment such as UPS and higher-performance server power supplies. While the fast charging technology of smart terminals and mobile phones has brought new experiences to users, it has also This greatly increases the output power of the original low-power charging power adapter. These new changes in application requirements have caused the demand for metal magnetic powder cores used in inductors to continue to grow rapidly.
Data shows that the overall growth rate of the metal soft magnetic powder core industry is expected to be approximately 17% from 2023 to 2025. The market demand in 2025 is expected to be approximately 260,000 tons, and the market size will reach approximately 8.6 billion yuan.
03 Film coated square wire
From single copper wires to flat wires to multi-strand stranded wires, wires have also experienced many rounds of changes in the development of the new energy industry, and in 2023, a new wire structure will appear - membrane-coated wires. square line.
Film-coated square wire is made by extruding the finished film-coated wire. The outer layer of its structure is high-temperature tape, and the inner layer is multi-core enameled wire or finished Teflon insulated wire. Its temperature resistance is better than other conventional film-coated wires. Much higher.
Under the trend of miniaturization, terminal products have increasingly demanding space requirements. Film-coated square wires are increasingly favored by engineers due to their advantages of lower height, smaller volume, high heat dissipation, and higher power.
It has become a trend to replace three-layer insulated wires with film-coated square wires, but it is still in the small batch testing stage. As the terminal market continues to mature, film-coated square wire will usher in a broader development space in the future.
▲Cross-sectional view of membrane-wrapped square wire structure
04 Chip inductor
Against the background of the rapid development of industries such as AI, Internet of Things, and 5G, chip inductors that are more suitable for high power consumption and high heat dissipation requirements related to AI servers have become one of the hottest products in 2023.
The chip inductor is a special form of integrated inductor located in the power supply module of the chip. It can supply power to the front end of the chip to maintain the normal operation of various chips in the motherboard and graphics card.
In the high-power field, the chip power supply needs to be in a stable low-voltage state. Therefore, the high-power demand can only be maintained by increasing the current, which puts higher high-current resistance requirements on the chip inductor. Compared with ferrite inductors, metal soft magnetic powder chip inductors have better magnetic saturation characteristics and can better withstand large currents. They are more suitable for high-performance GPUs and are used in high-power application scenarios such as AI servers.
Chip inductors are more suitable for miniaturization and high power consumption application fields, and will also have strong substitution for traditional inductors in the future.
The chip inductor produced by Inmicro is the third generation power inductor using semiconductor thin film technology, which is the first in China. Inmicro creatively processes the power inductor and the packaging base in one piece, realizing a two-in-one power inductor and packaging base.
Compared with the traditional SIP that requires "chip + inductor + base", the solution based on Inmicro only needs to seal the chip with the integrated inductor and other devices to realize the functions of the complete power module and peripheral circuits, further reducing the The size of the power module increases the power density and reduces the cost.
The application of integrated inductors also illustrates the significant progress made in the inductor production process. High-performance magnetic components not only depend on excellent magnetic materials, but also advanced production processes.
Magnetic component technology development direction
In the past year, "Magnetic Components and Power Supply" focused on the most popular end markets of electronic transformers and inductors, and reported in-depth on the development and markets of new energy vehicles, charging piles, energy storage, server power supplies, micro-inverters and other fields. Space, as well as technical requirements for electronic transformers and inductors.
With industry "involution" becoming a common situation among enterprises, we also analyzed the pros and cons of electronic transformer and inductor companies relocating to set up factories abroad, how to choose asset-light or asset-heavy, and how to deal with the development of new energy markets and other industry enterprises' pain points. .
In exchanges with many electronic transformers, inductors, magnetic material manufacturers, senior engineers in the terminal market, and industry experts and professors, we learned that high frequency, integration, high power, miniaturization, and low loss have become the main requirements for electronic transformers, The technological development direction of the inductor industry.
Taking the most watched new energy vehicles as an example, new energy vehicles have increasingly higher requirements on power systems. All-in-one integrated design of power systems has become a trend, integrating on-board OBC chargers, DC-DC converters and high-voltage distribution systems. Products with integrated electrical units have gradually become the mainstream solution for vehicle power supplies. Through the integration of vehicle power systems, high power, miniaturization, integration, intelligence, and high cost performance have become the development direction of vehicle power products.
For electronic transformers and inductors, due to the development of circuit topology in the direction of higher efficiency, smaller volume and lower cost, they are faced with technical difficulties such as high frequency, durability, and high-density magnetic integration. Therefore, inductance transformers have also been proposed. Various requirements. First, it is necessary to continuously improve the magnetic integration level to improve the performance of inductors and transformers, and reduce size and cost; second, it is necessary to continuously increase the frequency of inductors and transformers to adapt to higher operating frequencies, and to improve the loss problems caused by high frequencies; third, with the As the demand for heat dissipation performance continues to increase, liquid cooling may be gradually introduced into supercharging piles in the future, which also puts forward new requirements for the airtightness of inductors and transformers, which need to reach IP68 or even higher protection levels.
Taking the rapidly developing third-generation semiconductor as an example, the electronics manufacturing industry is gradually transitioning from the second-generation to the third-generation semiconductor materials. High power, high frequency, and miniaturization will also become the main theme of the development of magnetic component products. Technological changes will It drives intelligent equipment into a new stage of development, sets off a new wave of electronic component design, and also puts forward higher process requirements.
After the use of third-generation semiconductor materials, the frequency of switching power supplies has increased. Under the requirements of high frequency, high power, and small size, electronic transformers and inductors are required to reduce their size and optimize heat dissipation, and they need to be designed in the direction of flattening and integration.
For the magnetic core, under high frequency conditions, the grain size is smaller and the powder particle size is finer. It is necessary to innovate both the powder formula and the process conditions. High frequency and large magnetic field, wide temperature and low loss, wide frequency and low loss, high Bs and low loss have become the development direction of magnetic cores.
For wires, at higher frequencies, multi-stranded stranded wires are widely used, and it is necessary to improve the stranding process and increase the temperature level of the wires. The wire must be made thinner and thinner. In order to prevent the wire from being easily broken due to being too thin during the winding process, certain requirements are also placed on the bending resistance of the wire. In addition, in order to reduce losses, multi-stranded wires, Litz wires, and film-coated wires can reduce the skin effect to a certain extent.
Conclusion
The emergence of these new materials and new technologies has jointly shaped the annual image of China's magnetic components industry and even China's manufacturing industry as it strives to move forward and is tenacious in 2023.
The emergence of new materials and new inventions is not all there is to it. These "highlight moments" were created through the day-and-night research of magnetic materials developers. "Little" people achieve "big" things, and they deserve to be remembered.
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Post time: Apr-11-2024