The Materials and Process Constraints Behind the Problem
For decades, the idea of integrating magnetics into semiconductor processes has been explored - and repeatedly fallen short. The limitations have not been conceptual, but physical and manufacturing-driven.
Traditional thin-film magnetics rely on sputtered alloys such as NiFe. These materials suffer from a fundamental tradeoff: as frequency increases, losses rise sharply due to eddy currents and limited resistivity. At the same time, achievable flux density is constrained, limiting energy storage per unit volume.
This creates a bottleneck. High-frequency operation is required to shrink passive components, but existing materials cannot sustain performance in that regime.
Process constraints compound the issue. Sputtered deposition is slow, expensive, and poorly suited for thick, multi-layer structures. Building laminated cores requires dozens of steps and masks, making scalability impractical.
EnaChip addresses both constraints simultaneously.
By developing electroplated magnetic alloys with higher resistivity and high flux density (~1.6T), EnaChip enables operation at significantly higher frequencies while suppressing eddy current losses. This shifts magnetics into the 5–30 MHz regime, where size reduction becomes exponential.
At the same time, EnaChip replaces sputtering with a continuous electroplating process, enabling thick, laminated core structures to be fabricated rapidly and efficiently. What previously required 70+ steps can now be achieved in ~5 steps, with a single mask.
The result is the first practical pathway to scalable, high-performance integrated magnetics.