Armed with freshly signed exclusive intellectual property licensing agreements from both Carnegie Mellon University and the National Energy Technology Laboratory covering advanced magnetics technologies, CorePower Magnetics has appointed a new CEO charged with commercializing the company’s portfolio and rounding up investors for seed financing.
Dr. Samuel Kernion, formerly with Carpenter Technology, was named as the new chief executive officer.
“It’s an honor to join CorePower Magnetics’ talented leadership team in writing the next chapter of our story, bringing to market high performance magnetics to power the future,” said Kernion. “Customers are seeking solutions for smaller, lighter power electronics and we have the right team, the right technology and the passion to make it happen.” Prior to joining CorePower, Kernion, held multiple leadership roles in R&D and operations at Carpenter including launching a multi-million dollar Soft Magnetics Center of Excellence.
“The team is excited to bring this technology to market for the next generation of power dense, highly efficient power electronics components, and CMU and NETL are terrific launch partners,” said Dr. Paul Ohodnicki, CorePower’s co-founder and chief technology officer.
“We’re also thrilled to bring Sam back to Pittsburgh to lead this next phase of CorePower’s journey. As a student at CMU, Sam was one of the original inventors of CorePower Magnetics’ patented strain-annealing technology. Since that time, his industry track record in building programs, commercializing and delivering product to customers, and leading successful teams gives us full confidence in his abilities to take CorePower Magnetics to the next level.”
With the execution of the licensing agreements, the company says it is officially launching with a broad portfolio of soft magnetics technologies developed by teams led by CMU’s Dr. Michael McHenry, who also serves as co-founder and chief scientist of CorePower, and Ohodnicki who is a professor and researcher at University of Pittsburgh.
Its technology can have broad implications across grid modernization efforts and electric land, air and sea vehicles through its smaller, lighter, more efficient components, the company says. The combination of novel magnetic materials and advanced manufacturing capabilities enable a level of control in magnetics engineering not currently available.
Finished power electronics components including inductors and transformers can operate with increased temperature stability in smaller, lighter packages. With the underlying CMU and NETL inventions awarded the R&D100 and Carnegie Science Awards in 2019, the technology delivers a step change in magnetic core performance with up to 10x weight reduction, up to 5x volume reduction, up to 2x loss reduction and without the need for rare earth materials.
“This technology license represents the culmination of over a decade of CMU-led magnetics R&D, and I can’t wait to see the impact CorePower Magnetics makes in the market,” said Burcu Akinci, associate dean for research in Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering.
“Our role at NETL is to pursue research and development from idea to market and to play a pivotal role in the energy innovation ecosystem,” said NETL Director Brian Anderson. “This technology, which includes innovations NETL developed in partnership with CMU, offers multiple benefits to the American people, from power generation to transportation and beyond. To see the technology advance from concept to commercialization with CorePower Magnetics is very rewarding.”
Now seeking investors for an initial seed funding round, CorePower was established in Pittsburgh in 2020. For more info, see www.corepowermagnetics.com.
