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    Distributed Gap Cores for High Frequency Switch-Mode Power

    04/08/2019

    Micrometals is proud to introduce its new series of PQ distributed gap cores.  The rectangular geometry of the PQ body is ideal for surface mount applications while the round center post readily accepts helical flat wire coils, or bobbins with round wire.  The cores are offered in six industry standard geometries from 21mm to 51mm, three exclusive material formulations, and three reference permeability values.

    The new PQ geometries are available in Micrometals exclusive material formulations of Sendust (MS), Hi-Flux (HF) and FluxSan (FS - Iron Silicon) with 26, 40 or 60 permeability values.  These uniquely formulated materials offer a combination of high saturation magnetization and low losses, making them well suited for switching applications up to 1MHz. The distributed gap nature of these materials means that they can be used with little or no center-leg gap, greatly reducing the losses associated with fringing flux at higher frequency.  PQ cores offer several key advantages over toroid or E core geometries including better self-shielding and high winding density.  PQ cores also offer an advantage over EQ cores by providing a larger outer surface, which requires less winding to provide the same inductance. This advantage also allows smaller PQ cores to be used for comparable performance as EQ shapes.

    Jim Cox, Micrometals President commented “Micrometals has a long history of providing the most trusted and reliable powder formulations, and consistently delivering uncompromising performance in every core we deliver.  These new PQ shapes will allow our customers to achieve new levels of performance and efficiency in a very compact package.”

    The PQ series offering has been incorporated into the Micrometals Online Inductor Design Tool, for facilitating material selection and design optimization - https://www.micrometalsapc.com/design-software

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