8. Cost of semi-finished soft magnetic materials

Prices for magnetic materials vary over several orders of magnitude (from less than 1 e/kg to more than 100 e/kg), depending mainly on alloying elements, tonnage, and the manufacturing process for semi-finished material (sheet or ribbon coils) or finished material (wound cores, annealed stamped parts). A semi-finished alloy (sold in coils) with very high permeability, such as Fe-80%Ni or nanocrystalline, can be sold for between 15 and 40 e/kg in the case of very high-volume sensors (e.g. differential circuit breakers), and for around 1,000 e/kg for very specific, low-volume sensor cores (e.g. space probes).

Pricing factors are discussed below.

• Cost of material

  Access to, and abundance of, resources of magnetic elements (Fe, Ni, Co, rare earths) are very different depending on whether we consider...