Abstract
Gelcasting is a well established process for ceramics manufacturing which recently has been proved to be successful for soft ferrites as well. This approach is particularly interesting for power electronics application in which the magnetic components (e.g. transformers and inductors) are three dimensionally integrated on the power module substrate. This paper proposes a gelcasting process adapted to make it more effective for 3D heterogeneous integration. The main novelties in this direction consist of low solid load (65wt%) and gelation without catalyst to improve casting and de-airing steps. The magnetic properties of gelcast samples are compared with commercial materials and correlated with the microstructure.
Highlights
Recent developments in wide bandgap (WBG) transistors have pictured a new perspective of very compact high switching frequency power converters
One of the promising packaging solution is to integrate the output inductor of a switching cell together with the switching devices on the same substrate. By such an integrated package, the high frequency switching noises will be contained at the source and will not affect the end user
The physical implementation of this concept presents many challenges, among them one of the most critical is the 3D integration of the magnetic component
Summary
Recent developments in wide bandgap (WBG) transistors have pictured a new perspective of very compact high switching frequency power converters. Low permeability and low losses at high frequencies are required to meet these constraints (Section II) Both in literature and on the market, there are not many solutions in this direction.. Distributed air gap materials, such as sendust, are available in many combinations of size and permeability They are optimized to work in a relatively low frequency range (10-200 kHz) compared to WBG devices capability.. Gelcasting, on the contrary, enables near net shape manufacturing through pressure-less sintering process.12–15 This technique has been already applied to ferrite cores, it has not been optimised for integration purposes yet. Gelcast NiCuZn toroids have been manufactured and characterised in the frequency range of interest for WBG devices application, comparing the performance with two different materials available on the market (KoolMu26 and 4F1) (Section IV). Correlation study between magnetic properties and microstructure is presented
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
