With the rapid development of the global electronic industry, as one of the essential basic electronic components for the development of the electronic industry, all kinds of inductances are constantly innovating, and they are rapidly upgraded in terms of technology, application direction, product performance and quality.
Passive components are the most basic circuit components in electronic industry, and are widely used in various electronic devices. Capacitors, inductances and resistors are dominate in the passive component market. According to data, the global passive component market is expected to be 42.25 billion US dollars in 2022; Among them, inductance is the second largest passive component market after capacitor, with a share of 14%.
The role of inductance in the broad downstream market
The downstream market of passive components involves a wide range of applications, as the same as inductance Mobile communication has always been the market with the widest sales volume of passive components. According to Paumanok's statistics, from the perspective of inductance consumption distribution, the demand for inductance in mobile communication fields such as mobile phones accounts for 55%, and the output value accounts for 35%. PC is the second largest inductance sales market in the world, with demand accounting for 25% and providing about 20% of output value. The next market is the automobile market, which provides nearly 20% of the output value with less than 10% of the demand, which also benefits from the higher value of automobile inductance.
Inductance in the fields of automobile, industry, medical care and aviation belong to high-end inductance products, and their average value is several times that of inductance in the field of mobile communication, which has extremely high added value. In several quarters of destocking, high-end and high value-added inductor products, especially vehicle inductance, still have strong demand. From the expansion plans of passive component manufacturers in various fields, it also confirms the long-term prosperity of passive component market, especially in high-end application fields. From the view of the application of inductance, in circuit design, inductance mainly have three types of applications, power inductance are mainly used for voltage conversion, and commonly used DCDC circuits must use power inductance; Decoupling inductors are used to filter noise on power lines or signal lines, which EMC engineers should be very familiar with; There is also a class of high-frequency inductance, which are mainly used in RF circuits to realize bias, matching, filtering and other applications.
Power inductors provide critical regulation capability for power supply
With the evolution of electronic equipment to higher performance, the adjustment level of battery voltage by power supply/converter link is also improving accordingly. so, power inductance provides key adjustment ability, which can provide large current and large inductance for power supply systems with different voltage levels by accumulating and releasing energy to maintain continuous current. When used with an IC that performs high-speed switching, the power inductor can also convert the voltage to the required state. This kind of power inductor has a wide range of applications, from mobile digital equipment to communication equipment, from industrial control equipment to automotive electronic equipment, whether it is BOOST converter or BUCK, this power inductor is an essential component to improve link characteristics.
According to statistics, the global power inductor market will be about 31.7 billion yuan in 2022, and will continue to grow steadily in the future. By 2029, the market will be close to 38.1 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 2.8%. The first echelon of the whole power inductor industry is dominated by Japanese manufacturers, and Japanese manufacturers led by TDK, Murata and Panasonic occupy more than half of the global inductor market. There are a small number of domestic manufacturers in the first echelon, such as Sunlord Electronics and Chilisin. Other domestic medium and large inductance manufacturers are concentrated in the second echelon formation.
In high-end applications such as automobile and industry, the power supply needs to provide more stable power in a wider temperature range, which means that the power inductance needs to have lower magnetic flux leakage and smoother saturation characteristics without sacrificing DCR and core loss performance. The performance of the power link is largely restricted by the power inductance. Improving the conversion efficiency is directly related to reducing the loss of the power inductance. To improve the current capability, the core of the power inductance needs to be strengthened, and to reduce the noise of the power supply, the magnetic flux leakage of the power inductor needs to be reduced. Nowadays, the development trend of miniaturization of power supply circuit is getting more and more stronger, and the reduction of size also requires the innovation of power inductor in lamination technology and thin film technology.
Continuous penetration of integrated forming technology of power inductor
In addition to the performance trade-off, in terms of technology, more and more power inductors adopt integrated forming technology. According to the statistics of China Electronic Components Industry Association, by the end of 2022, it is estimated that 70% of power inductance adopt integrated forming technology. The global market scale of integrated molding power inductors alone will reach 22.6 billion yuan, and the domestic market scale will exceed 10 billion yuan. The main driving force for its market scale growth comes from automotive electronics, 5G, Internet of Things, smart wearable devices and so on.
The integrated inductance is an upgraded version of the wound inductor, which has more stable structure, lower impedance, higher efficiency than the traditional inductor, and can maintain excellent temperature rise current and saturation current characteristics in high frequency and high temperature environment, which is very suitable for the miniaturization and high performance of electronic equipment in automotive electronics, 5G, Internet of Things and smart wearable devices. In contrast, the technical threshold of integrated molding is higher. At present, four companies, namely VISHAY in the United States, MURATA in Japan, CYNTE in Taiwan and CHILISIN, occupy more than 80% of the market share of integrated molding inductors, and are the first echelon of the current market, among which VISHAY has obvious advantages. Domestic manufacturers such as SUNLORD, MICROGATE TECHNOLOGY and FENGHUA ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY are also promoting the application of related products, and are also continuously increasing investment in research and development. Integrated inductance pays more attention to customized cooperation, which gives non-head manufacturers many opportunities, and there is still a lot of market development space for domestic integrated inductors.
Decoupling inductor solves EMC problem of high data growth of electronic equipment
Decoupling inductors are mainly divided into differential mode inductors and common mode inductors. The difference between them is intuitively reflected in their names, one is used to suppress differential mode interference, and the other is used to suppress common mode interference. Generally speaking, differential mode interference has small amplitude and low frequency, which causes less interference. In contrast, common mode interference with large amplitude and high frequency is a difficult point that often puzzles designers in electronic design. At present, data transmission interface and differential line interface are iterating to a higher speed, and the improvement of transmission rate brings more high-frequency common-mode noise interference. Common-mode noise and high-frequency noise between the signal line and the interface will affect surrounding devices. Anyhow, the common mode inductance is most common way and bang for the buck. With the rapid increase of data volume of various electronic devices, the demand for common-mode inductors is rising.
According to Global Info Research, the global common-mode inductor market is about US $668.5 million in 2021, and is expected to reach US $916.7 million in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.6% from 2022 to 2028. At present, there are two mainstream common-mode inductor routes, one is sintering multi-materials through ceramics, ferrites and silver, and the other is sintering non-magnetic ferrites and magnetic ferrites. Many inductor manufacturers in MURATA, TDK, CHILISIN, TAIYO YUDEN, CYNTEC, SUNLORD, VISHAY, TAI-TECH ADVANCED ELECTRONICS, SUMIDA and other echelons have relevant layouts, and are constantly optimizing the winding structure through process to improve the common-mode impedance, differential-mode loss and other indicators. With the continuous increase of data volume, the problem of high-frequency EMI of differential lines will appear more and more frequently, and the market space of common-mode inductors is picking up.
The improvement of inductor core competitiveness lies in the continuous breakthrough of process innovation ability and magnetic powder formula. Inductor products made of different material ratios are quite different in permeability, loss rate, frequency, magnetic saturation and other parameters. How to achieve the ideal component structure requires not only high-precision manufacturing process, but also long-term experience accumulation in controlling the details in many manufacturing links. Looking back on the development history of inductance, all kinds of inductors are constantly innovating new structures or manufacturing processes. The innovation of process development ability makes inductance leap in quality, and with the breakthrough of raw material formula, a powerful technical moat can be built.
From the market trend, it is the industry trend for inductor manufacturers to expand to high-end applications, especially to incremental markets such as 5G, automobile, photovoltaic, intelligent consumer terminals and Industry 4.0. In this high-tech market, the domestic power has become stronger and stronger, and it has begun to make up its position. At present, many manufacturers' technologies are mature and cost-effective, and the expansion to high-end applications is naturally inseparable from the continuous investment and promotion of manufacturers in capacity expansion, process upgrading, self-research of materials and equipment, etc.
Inductor Application and Market Analysis: Technological Innovation and Material Breakthrough to Build a Moat of Inductor Technology-China exportsemi.com
