Book Description

There is an increasing demand for miniaturizing magnetic components such as inductors and transformers in power converters. This demand is driven by the decreasing size of electronic products and by the potential savings which might be achieved by integrating such components on integrated circuits. Magnetic components are typically the largest components by size and dissipate the most energy. Increasing the frequency at which converters operate can decrease the size of these components and increase their power handling capacity per unit area. However conventional soft magnetic materials are not optimized for operation at high frequencies where they exhibit undesirable characteristics such as high core loss. The primary goal of the research is to design and synthesize novel multi-layered nano-granular soft magnetic materials that can be used for high-frequency switched mode power converters. Properly characterizing the losses in the magnetic material from the context of it being used as a magnetic core is paramount in understanding the next steps needed to improve the material and the potential application in devices. Furthermore, to enable development of on-chip power converters, the synthesis methodology must be compatible with CMOS processes. In this thesis, several soft magnetic materials were synthesized using reactive sputtering. The synthesis process was thoroughly documented to ensure that the process can be easily repeated. A framework is also detailed that can be used for the thorough analysis of losses in a magnetic core and the framework is utilized to analyze the magnetic materials design. Two materials which are heavily emphasized in my work are Co-Zr-O and Ni-Fe-Zr-O. The basic characteristics of Co-Zr-O have been investigated in prior work and my work provides more detailed information on its performance under different operating and synthesis conditions. Ni-Fe-Zr-O is a newly designed granular material and its magnetic and loss characteristics are presented. After characterizing suitable materials, thick films were prepared as cores for inductors. Results of the performance of thick films are also presented.