Patent ID: 8153256

Claim:
A soft magnetic material comprising: a plurality of composite magnetic particles having a metal magnetic particle containing iron as the main component; and an insulating film surrounding the surface of said metal magnetic particle, wherein said insulating film contains aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, and oxygen, said insulating film satisfies the relationship of 0.4≦M Al /(M Al +M Si )≦0.9 and the relationship of 0.25≦(M Al +M Si )/M P ≦1.0 in the case that the molar amount of aluminum contained in said insulating film is represented by M Al , the sum of the molar amount of aluminum contained in said insulating film and the molar amount of silicon contained in said insulating film is represented by (M Al +M Si ), and the molar amount of phosphorus contained in said insulating film is represented by M P , and the insulating film comprises a phosphate non-crystalline structure wherein the aluminum and silicon are cations of the phosphate.