Comprehensive Development of (FeCo)-RE-O Ferrites for Miniature Magnetic Components Used in High Frequency Electronics

The demand for high frequency miniature magnetic components has been increased rapidly in recent years since most of the other electronic components such as IC amplifiers, capacitors, and resistors can be integrated for electronic portable instruments, forexample, cell phones. The inductors or transformers of magnetic materials are always found to be the size-dominant components in these devices. In order to increase the efficiency of power devices with higher power density the use of a small planarmagnetic inductor/transformer is required to replace those nonmagnetic inductor/transformers. In this phase I program, Intematix Corporation proposes to rapidly develop new high frequency low-loss, high-permeability ferrite materials by an innovativecombinatorial synthesis technology. The targeted material is based on (FeCo)-RE-O, RE=Hf, Tb, Dy, Ho, ferrite materials. Four thin film libraries of these materials with cobalt concentration continuously changing from zero to one will be synthesized andfigure of merit (Ms/tan) at different operation frequencies will be optimized as a function of Co concentration and different rare-earth elements. Both thin film deposition and bulk ceramic processing will be developed for the identifiednew ferrite materials. Our goal is delivering ferrites with higher magnetization (Ms>1T) and lower loss (Q>10) at a frequency higher than 5 MHz.The success of this innovative program will be developed into commercial fabrication of high frequency, low lossmagnetic materials for various applications, particularly for portable instruments. The goal of this program is to provide DOD and the electronics industry with high frequencey ferrites for a huge potential market of wireless communications and other highfrequency electronics.