An Integrated Inductor and Capacitor with Co-Located Electric and Magnetic Fields

Passive components such as inductors and capacitors are fundamental components of nearly all power electronic conversion systems. This paper presents an innovative approach to highly integrated inductor (L) and capacitor (C) design by storing magnetic and electric field energy in a common volume, constituting a dual energy core (DEC). This is dissimilar from other integrated designs that primarily exploit a distributed parasitic capacitance between planar inductor windings, ultimately parsing electric and magnetic fields into separate locations unnecessarily. The DEC enables a four terminal integrated LC device that may be applied in nearly any circuit configuration (AC or DC) since its terminal characteristics appear as decoupled lumped elements. The fields in the core geometry are analytically modeled and the effects and tradeoffs of selecting different core parameters/dimensions are explored. Proof of concept prototypes of toroidal form factor demonstrate techniques for fabricating DEC integrated devices, and experimental measurements correlate with the analytical models used in the design process. Finally, a boost converter is constructed and tested with a prototype device to demonstrate decoupled operation of the fields in the core on a large signal basis.