Frenetic: A basic explanation

I am Chema Molina, CEO at Frenetic, and I would like to explain you what Frenetic is about. In this article, I will endeavor to answer most of the questions you may have about the platform.

1.   What does Frenetic do?

Frenetic is a platform that connects you with the best community of magnetic experts, manufacturers, and design tools in the industry. With Frenetic, you will be able to digitalize all the processes related to the magnetic components production cycle and get support from world-renowned experts:

If you are addressing your first magnetic, do not worry, we can offer support on learning how to design it. On the other hand, if you are an expert, you will be able to use our templates to describe your design or use our simulator to suggest a suitable one. In the second phase, we will build, measure, and ship your sample. Finally, if you wish to produce more units, we will connect you with the best manufacturer network worldwide.

During the whole process, our Magnetics Design Engineering Team will support you to make the best decisions. All our specialists have invested more than 10,000 hours in magnetics design and are receiving constant feedback from our expert scientific advisors including Bryce Hesterman and Bob White.

2.   How have we built our Artificial Intelligence Models?

The most common questions we encounter are “Where do you apply artificial intelligence in the magnetics design process?” and “How do you do it?”. Some people are reluctant to use our technology because they do not understand how we use Artificial Intelligence, and there is a common misconception that there is a black box where the values are randomly coming from. The classic iterative method is very intuitive for understanding what is happening, but it does not work if you do not really learn from the results. And the human capacity to learn diminishes handling up to 40 variables in the process.

To build Frenetic Online (FO), a team of 25 Hardware Engineers is working on these traditional processes, every single day. They design, build, test, and iterate for the software team to translate this know-how into the software.

The Hardware Team dedicates up to 4,000 hours a month in our lab and carries out the following tasks:

Following this, the Software Team, formed up by 6 engineers, continues the process by:

When the above is completed, the Artificial Intelligence Team uses AI models to sort out the issues resulting from variables, like Llk, Core losses in some specific cases, Rac or Temperature, which could be challenging to model. They also work on resolving delays produced by the current solutions based on Finite Element Analysis tools, which we support in our partnership with Ansys, and which can significantly slow down the running of a single simulation. They do this by:

In the last 3 years, we have dedicated around 80,000 hours to learn about High-Frequency Magnetics, and we still have much more to discover. For this reason, we collaborate with external experts who act as Scientific Advisors expanding our knowledge with their expertise.

3.   Frenetic in numbers

Every month, we dedicate 4,000 hours to Magnetics design, study, and test.

In the Lab, we count on:

We also count on the following equipment:

As a platform, Frenetic includes several parts. The most known one is Frenetic Online, which is a simulator. Integrated within FO we have the sample ordering (or production) and finally, we have the Virtual Laboratory. Some of these features are not available for everyone because they are in Beta version.

4.   How does Frenetic Online (FO) works?

4.1      Waveform Builder

Frenetic's philosophy for magnetic components design is having a clear idea of the circuit waveforms. Building the waveform with the Frenetic tool is very simple, you can select your topology and include the parameters, or you can upload your own CSV files from your own simulator or oscilloscope.

It is very important to specify the harmonics in the waveforms because they will establish the limits for increasing the power density.

4.2      Design Suggestion

Once you have specified the waveform and the mechanical limitations, the next step is to ask for a design suggestion. Clicking in "Generate Design" FO will suggest a few designs to match your specifications.

These designs will serve as a starting point because the goal of the suggestion is not to provide an optimum design, but a design meeting all the limitations established.

In your dashboard of the design, you can tune the number of turns, winding strategy, winding wires or customize your core and check the temperature, losses, and Leakage inductance evolution.

4.3       Introduce your design to see the performance of your magnetic

If you already have a design, you can introduce the physical description to estimate the losses with respect to the operating point specified previously.

4.4      Classic Models

Frenetic is not discovering any new physical property of the copper or any material. Therefore, a lot of models are just physical equations like DC resistance, where the key point here is doing a very accurate calculation of the length of the wire. Other models, like Core losses which are parameters from some manufacturers, are based on Steinmetz models and combined with our own models (Cassandra) where Frenetic uses the results of the lab for improving the accuracy of the classic models.

Regarding the winding resistance, Frenetic started with classic Dowell models. However, this model is too general, and the accuracy is not good enough in some specific applications. Therefore, with the measurements of specific magnetics with specific core shapes (Eg., Flyback), Frenetic is building specific models that only apply to a specific range. As a result, we have multiple models, with a common beginning, the classic model. In some of the Rac models, where Frenetic has enough data, we use Artificial Intelligence models. 

4.5       Sample Ordering and Production

Once you are satisfied with your design, you can ask for a physical sample of the component, which Frenetic will ship to you sharing the measurements through the online platform.

For future productions, Frenetic offers a list of potential manufacturers that will meet your requirements as well as support from our technical team at every stage.

4.6       Virtual Laboratory

During the process of building Artificial Intelligence, we have collected millions of data from simulations and data from real measurements in our lab. Organizing these on a database is difficult and we have often found data dispersed over excel files in different computers and folders. This was very inefficient for tracking what is going on with both the designs and the models. To improve this, we have created the digital Lab where you can include the measurements of your samples or your converters. Here you can also include the efficiency measurements and analyze the impact of different parameters.

For mass production, the manufacturer will be able to include the measurements of their components for verification before shipment.

Some of the measurements already included are:

5.       Reference Designs Library

During the process of selecting an inductor or transformer, customizing a design is a beautiful process but it could be long and expensive.

 To optimize this, we have built a library to help engineers easily find a magnetic component.

The magnetics in our reference library has been built and tested guaranteeing both their functionality and cost. The designs come from: