Unveiling the Microworld Inside Magnetic Materials via Circuit Models
Han Cui, Saurav Dulal, Sadia Binte Sohid, Gong Gu, Leon M. Tolbert
Abstract
The progress made in wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors has resulted in rapid miniaturization and increased efficiency of power converters. However, the improvements in magnetic components, such as inductors and transformers, have not kept pace with these advancements <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">[1]</xref> , <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">[2]</xref> , <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">[3]</xref> . Although advances in WBG devices, novel topologies, control schemes, and hardware fabrications have greatly improved circuit efficiency and power density, the bottleneck now lies with magnetic components <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">[4]</xref> , with magnetics accounting for more than 30% of the cost and more than 30% of the loss in almost all power converters <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">[5]</xref> . Magnetics design has become a critical issue for power electronics as trends towards high efficiency and high power-density.