Originally Published MPMN March 2005

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Small and Powerful Tantalum Chip Capacitor Offers High Volumetric Efficiency

Device eliminates welded lead frame, increasing space available for the active element

Susan Wallace

A tantalum chip capacitor delivers up to 10 µF in an 0402 case size, with good leakage characteristics.
The TACMicrochip series developed by AVX Corp. (Myrtle Beach, SC) is suitable for applications that require ultraminiature devices with high capacitance values and low current leakage for battery-powered devices such as cardiac pacemakers.

Bill Millman, technical director for AVX’s tantalum products division says the construction of the products eliminates the welded lead frame common in conventional molded tantalum capacitor devices. This dramatically increases the space available for the active tantalum element, even as the package itself becomes smaller. “This reduction in the package size enables designers to add higher capacitance value parts to existing circuits; or to use similar package sizes to further miniaturize their circuits,” he says.

Millman says applying semiconductor manufacturing techniques to replace the lead frame methods enabled the company to reduce the package size. “By depositing capacitor material directly on a tantalum wafer substrate, the devices can be built up in a series of automated process steps, and the resulting wafer can be sliced into individual chips like a semiconductor die,” he says.

Typical specifications include CV values such as 10µF@2 V; 4.7µ[email protected] V; and 1.0µF@10 V. Maximum ESR values are 15W at 100 K Hz.


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