Three major passive devices: resistance, capacitance and inductance, which is essential device for any hardware circuit. These passive components exist in various application fields. Their existence is not only related to the overall stability of hardware circuits, but also determines the overall quality of electronic equipment.
Among them, inductance is the general name of mutual inductance and self-inductance, and it is the basic physical quantity in closed circuit. Inductor is composed of winding, magnetic core and other raw materials. It is a component that can convert electric energy into magnetic energy and store it by using inductance characteristics, and is also called choke coil. With the development of inductors towards low voltage, large DC bias, high temperature stability, miniaturization and thinning, ordinary soft magnetic ferrite materials can’t meet such high requirements, and molding power inductors arise popular.
Rapid iteration of electronic products promotes the development of integrated inductor
Nowadays, consumer electronic equipment, industrial electronic equipment and automobile electronic equipment all show the trend of miniaturization, integration, multifunction and high power. There are many applications of inductors in these devices. In order to meet the development trend of electronic devices, inductors need to be continuously improved in volume, power, cost and performance. Traditional inductors, such as plug-in inductors and wound inductors, have begun to be weak, so molding power inductor came into being and quickly became the new favorite of various inductor applications.
Figure1: inductors
Molding power inductor is an upgraded version of wound inductor, which is die-cast by implanting air-core coil into mold and filling magnetic powder. It also has many nicknames, such as molded inductor and alloy inductor. Molding power inductors have three main characteristics: firstly, they are SMD or DIP; secondly, the molding power inductor structure itself exhibits low-noise characteristics; and thirdly, compared to other structures of the same size, molding power inductor structure has the lowest DC impedance.
Specifically, the molding power structure is more stable, has lower impedance, has higher efficiency than traditional inductors, and can maintain excellent temperature rise current and saturation current characteristics in high frequency and high temperature environment. This kind of molding power inductors has a wide range of applications, from mobile digital equipment to communication equipment, from industrial control equipment to automotive electronic equipment, it is necessary to use molding power inductors to improve the performance of power link.
The consumer electronics market is a big market for molding power inductors. Especially, the multifunctional design space of many intelligent terminals is very tight, and the PCB space is more and more limited. Miniaturized molding power inductors with excellent performance naturally become the first choice for these devices. Although mobile communication equipment is the largest downstream market of molding power inductors, integrated inductors for medical aviation, automobile and industry have higher value, especially automobile molding power inductors, which have high added value and much higher price than the average price of inductors in the field of mobile communication.
Continuously growing market size and penetration rate of molding power inductor
Under the leadership of medical aviation, automobile and industrial applications, the market scale of inductors continues to grow. It is estimated that the global inductor market will exceed 6 billion US dollars in 2024. The penetration rate of molding power inductors in inductor applications is also increasing continuously. According to the statistics of China Electronic Components Industry Association, it is estimated that 70% of power inductors adopt molding power technology by the end of 2022. The global market scale of integrated inductors alone will reach 22.6 billion yuan, and the domestic market scale will exceed 10 billion yuan. The driving force of its market scale growth mainly comes from automotive electronics, 5G, Internet of Things, smart wearable devices and so on.
Figure2: molding power inductor
The molding power inductor meets the needs of miniaturization and intelligence of electronic equipment. Compared with the traditional wound inductor, it is not only fully competent in technical indicators, but also improves the assembly efficiency of downstream products. Its only disadvantage is that its price is on the high side. In the future, it will gradually replace the traditional wound inductor in most fields and continue to improve its penetration rate.
From the perspective of industry structure, the technical threshold of molding power inductor is high, and manufacturers who can stably prepare molding power inductor have strong competitiveness in the market. At present, four companies, namely VISHAY in the United States, MURATA in Japan, CYNTEC in Taiwan and CHILISIN, occupy more than 80% of the market share of integrated inductors, and are the first echelon of the current market, among which VISHAY has obvious advantages. Domestic manufacturers such as SUNLORD, MICROGATE and FENGHUA Advanced Technology are also continuously increasing investment in R&D, while vigorously promoting the application of related customers, and their market space and future prospects are promising.
Progress of Molding Power Inductor Manufacturers
For the technical of molding, American VISHAY has made many breakthroughs, and its patented technology is basically mastered. Molding process of VISHAY can handle high transient current spikes without hard saturation, which is absolutely leading in technology. Its molding power inductors has a large market in high-end fields such as automobile and industry. At present, VISHAY continuously optimizes the voltage regulation module and DCDC conversion of high-end electronic equipment on the integrated inductor.
Figure3: IHLP Series of VISHAY
At present, the famous IHLP series integrated inductors owned by VISHAY have 189 kinds of subdivision materials in official website, including commercial grade and automotive grade, which are specifically divided into original series, low DCR series, high temperature series and ultra-high temperature series. IHLP series of molding power inductors have been improved in size, DC resistance and current capability, and buzzer noise can be reduced to the lowest level in the industry.
The power inductor products of MURATA, another leading manufacturer, can be divided into integrally formed inductors and ferrite inductors. Winding wires, metal alloy materials and electrodes are mainly used. Winding wires are integrally formed into electrodes by metal alloy materials, and then unique material technology, winding technology and forming technology are used to commercialize integrally formed inductors. As far as its own products are concerned, the molding power inductor is about 50% smaller in size than ferrite materials. The DFE series molding power inductors of MURATA also have more than 100 material numbers currently being mass-produced. The optimized materials and coil structure have achieved ultra-high electrical characteristics in small size, and through the technology with both voltage resistance and reliability, they are fully competitive in automotive grade products.
As a domestic passive component head manufacturer, SUNLORD Electronics has also laid out integrated inductors. According to relevant information, SUNLORD Electronics has laid out integrated inductors with large-size, small-size models and WTX product types. Its molding power inductors has extremely low DCR and ultra-low AC loss with high switching frequency (up to 5MHz), and also reduces magnetic leakage flux and electromagnetic interference through closed magnetic circuit design.
Figure4: WTX Series of SUNLORD
SUNLORD Electronics is currently vigorously promoting the batch sales application of integrated inductors in mobile phone applications, automotive electronics applications, industrial control applications and Internet of Things modules; FENGHUA Advance Technology, as a domestic manufacturer of head passive components, has not only made frequent progress in the field of high-end capacitors and resistors, but also realized mass production of miniature integrated inductors in the field of integrated inductors, and continued to open up markets in the fields of automotive electronics and high-end communication.
MICROGATE Technology has also been deployed in the field of integrated inductors for a long time, with small-size MPIM series, and has been supplied stably and on a large scale in the field of mobile phones and laptops in China. In the field of automotive electronics, according to relevant news, its integrated inductor has been designated among many automotive electronics customers, and it is expected to expand more application markets in the future.
Figure5: Molding Power Inductors of MICROGATE
The technical barrier of molding power inductor is still the biggest obstacle faced by related manufacturers, and the two barriers of material formula and manufacturing process directly affect the performance and stability of integrated inductor. The finished products made of different material ratios are quite different in permeability, loss rate, frequency, magnetic saturation and other parameters. At present, it still relies on imports.
Currently, the downstream end-market is experiencing a faster pace of technological upgrades, and downstream manufacturers require customized collaboration from integrated molded inductor manufacturers. This provides many opportunities for non-leading manufacturers. Many domestic manufacturers that have achieved breakthroughs in integrated molded inductor production technology have started close collaborations with downstream manufacturers. With localized customization and cost advantages, they are expected to open up market development opportunities for domestically produced integrated molded inductors in areas such as automotive, industrial control, and high-end consumer devices.
The Penetration Rate of Molding Power Inductors Continues to Improve, which is Expected to Open Up the Development Space of the Domestic Market-China.exportsemi.com
