Small inductors become the mainstream of the market

With the development of miniaturization of electronic products, the volume of inductor has been reduced to the physical limit. In view of this, the president and CEO of EPCOS Greater China, Michael Pocsatko, believes that the development direction of inductors in the future is integration. Inductors will be combined with other discrete devices into complex modules to provide customers with a complete system that is easy to use. However, as far as the present situation is concerned, it is still a long way to realize the integration of miniaturized discrete devices.
In order to conform to the future development direction, major manufacturers continuously improve the manufacturing process of inductors, expand production capacity and meet the growing market demand. According to TDK's mid fiscal year 2006 joint performance, TDK's inductor sales increased by 27% year on year, driving the growth of TDK's overall business. This growth was confirmed by the sales performance of TDK distributors. Fang Xingliang, general manager of Shenzhen Tianweihua Electronics Co., Ltd., said, "Driven by market demand, the TDK small inductors we sold increased by 30% in 2006."
It is understood that small inductors are widely used in mobile phones, digital set-top boxes, Bluetooth headsets, LCD TVs, automotive electronics, industrial control and other fields, with huge market potential. As far as chip inductors are concerned, the market demand in 2007 will reach more than 300 billion, worth about 30 billion yuan.
At the same time, senior insiders in the industry pointed out that after the impact of RoHS environmental protection directives and the rise in the price of raw materials, the price of small inductors tended to be stable, resulting in a continuous increase in the market demand for small inductors and an expansion of the production and marketing gap. In order to meet the growing market demand, major inductor manufacturers have launched various new products for different market applications.
Small inductors for different applications
With the continuous segmentation of the market, a variety of small inductors for specific applications have emerged. In data systems and industrial electronic applications, the demand for load point power supply has increased greatly, which brings development opportunities for high-power and small-sized inductors. For this reason, EPCOS has introduced HPI series high power inductors for the load point power supply market. The size is only 12 when the current carrying capacity is significantly improved × 12mm。
EPCOS HPI series inductors are oriented to the DC/DC converter market, including load point converters and voltage regulator modules (VRM). In these circuits, HPI acts as the output inductor, and its performance directly affects the total output of the converter. Therefore, optimizing the size and electrical characteristics of the inductor can ensure that the converter meets the requirements in various applications.
Pocsatko emphasized: "HPI can completely replace the spiral power inductor, because the HPI uses a spiral coil inside, that is, a flat rectangular copper wire is wound vertically to form a spiral wire." Different from the ordinary coil wound with round copper wire, the spiral coil can make the CORE Window of the inductor make full use of the copper coil, so that the gap factor of the copper coil is close to 1. In this way, the ohmic resistance of the coil is reduced and the efficiency is improved while improving the utilization rate of the copper coil. In addition, the size of the inductance device can also be smaller, and it has the same or higher current carrying capacity, which saves the use space of the circuit board.
It is understood that most manufacturers of inductors for DC/DC converter market use a variety of core shapes and materials, but EPCOSHPI series inductors use a ferrite core material. Although other materials allow higher saturation current, ferrite materials have significantly reduced core loss. The DC/DC converter usually has ripple current. When the output inductor faces serious ripple current, the advantages of ferrite material are more prominent. The cost of ferrite material is also lower than that of other materials, and the magnetic core can have a special inductance value by precisely adjusting the gap.
Michael Pocsatko also pointed out that another advantage of HPI series inductors is that they use self lead as the contact between the coil and the circuit board. These leads are rolled under the coil holder to minimize the circuit board space required by the inductor. At the bottom of the outer surface, a specially designed insulator secures these leads and insulates them from the core. Because of its valuable space in such applications, HPI inductors have great advantages over similar products.
At present, HPI series inductors have 2 package heights and 8 standard inductance values, which can also be customized by adjusting the gap. HPI series inductors can provide excellent electrical performance. Packaging greatly reduces the circuit board space required by inductors, enabling circuit designers to optimize power density and minimize the number of phases in the load point power supply. The inductance value of HPI series inductance is 0.5-3.92 μ H. The current carrying capacity is 12~30A.
In addition to small inductors for industrial applications, many manufacturers have introduced products for the consumer electronics market. Cooper's new inductors SD3112, SD3114 and SD3118 are 3.1 in shape × 3.1mm, meeting the requirements of RoHS directive, with high power density area ratio, and used in mobile phones, digital cameras, small LCD displays, PDA and other portable devices. SD3112 provides high output, and the variation range of inductance value is from 1 μ H/1.65A to 220 μ H/0.113A。 The SD3114 (1.4mm) and SD3118 (1.8mm) with higher height provide higher rated current. It is understood that SD3112, SD3114 and SD3118 have ferrite shielding structure, which has the advantage of strong EMI suppression capability, and this structure is convenient for the automatic pickup and player to identify devices and determine their installation direction properly. This series of products are packaged in rolls (4100 pieces per roll). The price is 19 cents when the products are delivered in bulk, and the delivery time is 4 weeks.
In addition, Vishay also introduced new 4040 ultra-thin and high current patch inductors IHLP-4040DZ-01 and IHLP-4040DZ-11, which have high maximum frequency and low inductance. The maximum frequency of IHLP-4040DZ-11 is 1.0MHz, while the maximum frequency of IHLP-4040DZ-01 is 5.0MHz. The inductance of both devices is as low as 0.19 μ H。 IHLP series products are packaged with DCR, and the size is 10.3 × 11.5mm, 4.0mm thick, and the occupied area is standard 4040. These two products can handle high instantaneous current peak without hard saturation, and provide higher rated current with lower DCR value; In addition, it adopts 100% lead-free composite structure packaging that conforms to RoHS standards and has a protective layer to reduce the buzzer noise to an ultra-low level; It has the characteristics of thermal shock resistance, moisture resistance, mechanical shock resistance and vibration resistance. In mobile phone, PC, PMP, GPS, automotive electronics, load point converter, distributed power system, FPGA and other applications, IHLP series products are small high-performance, low-power solutions.
Market Prospect of Small Inductors
The growing market demand for small inductors, coupled with the increasing added value of inductor manufacturers' products, provide a growth space for small inductors. Therefore, in the spot market, the market share of small inductance products is rising.
According to Fang Xingliang of Tianweihua, among the major electronic markets in Shenzhen, 0401 and 0201 chip inductors are popular with customers, and orders from manufacturers such as Bluetooth earphones and digital set-top boxes are growing rapidly. For example, TDKMLK1005S3N9S, MLF1608A100KT and other models of multilayer inductors sold by Tianweihua are widely used in high-frequency environments, with good market sales; The TDKHHM1517 and HHM1520, which are used in band-pass filters such as Bluetooth earphones, wireless network cards and balanced/unbalanced transformers, also have broad market prospects.
Pocsatko also said: "In the Chinese market, we maintained a growth rate of nearly 30% in 2006, and the inductor and other product lines contributed to the performance growth." However, he also pointed out that small inductors face challenges as the price of raw materials rises. For example, he said that in the past year, the cost of producing small inductors in some regions increased by 100%. In order to reduce costs, EPCOS implemented the strategy of localization of new product production, set up six manufacturers in China, became the second largest electronic component manufacturer in the Chinese market, and established the position of EPCOS in the Chinese market.
Chinese local manufacturers have unique advantages in controlling production costs. For example, Guangdong Zhaoqing Yingda Inductive Devices Co., Ltd. reduces production costs by controlling the preparation process of raw materials and powders. Zhaoqing Yingda has the ability to produce ferrite powder by itself, and the electronic paste can also be purchased by other companies within the head office, which greatly saves costs. Moreover, even if customers have special requirements for the frequency characteristics of inductors, Zhaoqing Yingda can also meet customers' requirements by developing raw materials. At the same time, the control of product quality and parameters can also be traced back to raw materials and initial chemical raw materials. Once problems occur, the product quality and parameters can be controlled by changing raw materials and chemical raw materials. These are advantages that manufacturers relying on imported materials do not have.
In addition to the rising price of raw materials, the RoHS directive also brings cost pressure to small inductor manufacturers. However, with the efforts of major manufacturers, the impact of RoHS and other environmental protection directives is being gradually resolved, which is no longer the main factor affecting the development of small inductors.
However, with the development of the market, the miniaturization of inductance devices has reached the limit. How to further reduce the size of inductors without increasing costs is a common problem for many inductance manufacturers. Many inductance manufacturers believe that integration is the future development trend of small inductance devices. The inductor and other devices are integrated into a complex module to form a complete system, which can not only reduce the volume, but also reduce the cost. However, it still takes time for small inductors to be integrated.