IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - June 2020 - 43

Performance Factor B0 f : Power Handling at Constant Loss Density and Volume
Standard Performance Factor
160

Low-Permeability
HF-Magnetic Materials

F = Bf (mT . MHz)

120

80
Widely Used Commercial Power
Magnetic Materials

0
0.01
Ferrox. [28]
4F1
C2010

0.1
C2025
C2050
C2075

1
Frequency (MHz)
CM48
CM5
N40

N40 [7]
XCK
XTH2

52
61
67

10
67 [7]
68
M

100
M2
M3
M3 [7]

M5
HiEff 13
Micro 2

P [7]
17 [7]

FIG 2 Design of improved high-frequency power magnetics continues to challenge researchers. (Source: [1].)

was the challenges of magnetics. In addition to continued
improvement in magnetic material and transformer/inductor structures, circuit topologies that inherently rely less on
magnetic components were viewed as a promising path forward. Hybrid switched-capacitor converters and, in general,
multilevel converters follow the trend presented by several
panelists, where the designers judiciously leverage circuit
complexity to obtain performance improvements. Key technology drivers or successful implementations of such solutions are digital control, integration, and improved active and
passive devices.
Another challenge that was identified by many participants was that of research in packaging, integration,
and manufacturability. This area was viewed by many as
critical for performance improvements, yet difficult for
many university research groups to participate in. There
is a concern that only the most well-connected research
groups and largest companies have the scale to be at
the forefront of technology development in this area. In
addition to the importance of new design tools suitable
for academic research, there may be a need for shared/
pooled resources, similar to what is done in CMOS integrated circuits. Standard process design kits and foundry
approaches have served the integrated circuit community
well, and may well be on a path worth pursuing for power
integration as well.
Finally, the participants agreed that for power electronics, form fits function, and a key opportunity is identifying
the right applications where dramatic system performance

can be realized through power electronics. In terms of true
moon-shot technologies, the participants were looking forward to identifying and developing new active switches
and exploring new passive components such as piezoelectrics for potential use in power conversion. Entirely new
approaches to power conversion were also viewed favorably, but likely best identified and pursued by the next generation of power electronics engineers.

About the Author
Robert Pilawa-Podgurski (pilawa@berkeley.edu) received
his B.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge. He is an associate professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
Previously, he was an associate professor in electrical and
computer engineering at the University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign. He received the IEEE Power Electronics Society
Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award, in 2014, and the IEEE Education Society Mac E.
Van Valkenburg Award for outstanding contributions to
teaching unusually early in one's career, in 2018. He is a coauthor of nine IEEE prize-winning papers.

Reference
[1] A. J. Hanson, J. A. Belk, S. Lim, C. R. Sullivan, and D. J. Perreault, "Measurements and performance factor comparisons of magnetic materials at
high frequency," IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 31, no. 11, pp. 7909-7925,
Nov. 2016. doi: 10.1109/TPEL.2015.2514084.

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