Because of several distinct advantages, inverter circuits are widely used to operate discharge lamps. One of the issues in the development of inverter circuits is to reduce the weight and size of the inverter. It is therefore necessary to reduce the size of the electronic components, especially the inductors.
In this paper, a non-linear magnetic model developed by Potter is used to simulate the characteristics of inductors. The model shows good approximation for the magnetic characteristics of thin ribbon and ferrite materials. The model is adapted for the resonance inductors used in the inverter circuits for fluorescent lamps, and the filter chokes for HID lamps. The wave-forms in inverter circuits obtained by the simulation agree well with those of the experimental results.