SMC materials
Soft magnetic composites are basically iron powder particles separated with an electrically insulated layer. The powder metallurgy (P/M) process has for long time been used to manufacture SMC components for high frequency inductor applications. These traditional SMC materials consist generally of iron particles distributed in matrix of organic materials.
New SMC materials that do not contain any organic matrix have been introduced rather recently and make it possible to manufacture components with significantly higher saturation induction, permeability as well as lower hysteresis losses.
As a result SMC materials are now an alternative to electrical steel sheets and ferrites for a wide range of applications. Since those materials are rather new, material, process and application development is ongoing at a high pace.