Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1471851
"Having customized magnetics instead of off-the-shelf components helps reduce the size or weight of the PCB. Beyond this, if the production volume is very high, there can be real cost benefits as well." Inam Saudagar Electronic Controls Hardware Engineer, Fisher & Paykel Technologies Custom Magnetics While the market for magnetic components is rife with solutions and products, it is still often the case that a customer's specific needs are not met by any existing off-the-shelf products. In this common scenario, customers will turn to custom magnetics as the solution. Custom magnetics are created when customers work directly with a magnetics company to develop a new magnetic solution that fits within the unique needs of their design. This can come in many forms, ranging from tweaking small aspects of an existing design to completely developing a new solution from scratch. A common scenario is a customer needing custom magnetics for an isolated switched-mode power supply design. Here, customers regularly require custom transformers in order to meet the unique requirements of their power supply. In situations like these, custom magnetics can offer huge benefits to designers who are looking to balance the trade-offs of their system design. Without custom solutions, designers are mostly confined to boilerplate solutions, the quality of which can be a limiting factor in their system's performance. With custom solutions, designers can truly optimize their design to meet their needs for performance, cost, and area while still ensuring high qualities of efficiency, reliability, and safety. On the other hand, a potential drawback of using custom magnetics is increased difficulty in part sourcing, as only one supplier has ever made the component before. On top of this, custom magnetics may drive up the costs as compared to off-the-shelf solutions due to economies of scale. Chapter Five 17 I Custom Magnetics