A tantalum electrolytic capacitor is one of the passive components of an electronic circuit. It comprises of a pellet of permeable metals of tantalum (anode) which is covered all around by an insulating oxide layer forming the dielectric. It is covered solid or even liquid electrolytes (cathode). The tantalum capacitor has a very thin and comparatively high permittivity dielectric layer and because of this, it is much better than other capacitors in having high Capacitance/Volume as well as lower weight.

Tantalum is known to be a conflict mineral. The Tantalum Electrolytic Capacitors are found to be more costly than the Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors.

Tantalum capacitors are intrinsically polarized segments. If the reverse voltage is applied then the capacitors may get destroyed. Bipolar or Non-polar Tantalum Capacitors can be made by adequately interfacing two capacitors which are polarized in series, with the anode having an orientation in the opposite direction.

Basic Construction of Solid Tantalum Electrolytic Capacitors

A Tantalum Capacitor is basically a chip capacitor which consists of tantalum powder pressed and compacted into a pellet and forms the anode of the capacitors. The oxide layer of tantalum pentoxide forms the dielectric and the cathode is a solid manganese dioxide electrolyte.

Types of Tantalum Capacitors

The Tantalum Electrolytic Capacitors are made up in 3 different styles:

• Axial Leaded Tantalum Capacitors – This kind of capacitor is generally used in medical, space and military applications.
• Tantalum “pearls” single-ended style (resin-dipped) used for PCB mounting.
• Tantalum Chip Capacitors – It has an SMD style and is used for surface mounting. Eighty percent of all Tantalum Capacitors are SMDs.

Chip Capacitors

As said above, more than eighty percent of Tantalum Electrolytic Capacitors are made in SMD style as Tantalum Chip Capacitors. The end faces consist of contact surfaces, furthermore, is fabricated in various sizes. One can identify different sizes using case code letters. For some of them which have been fabricated for a long time, the measurements and case coding overall makes are still to a great extent equivalent. But due to the new features of Tantalum Electrolytic Capacitors, like the “face down” technique to decrease inductance and the multi-anode technique to decrease the ESR has resulted in a much broader range of chip sizes and case codes. These takeoffs from EIA benchmarks mean gadgets from various producers are never again constantly uniform.

Wet Tantalum Capacitors

One of the main characteristics of the modern days Wet (non-solid) Tantalum Electrolytic Capacitor is the energy density they have as compared to the Wet Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors and Solid Tantalum Capacitors. The self-healing property in them enables the formation of dielectric thickness with a much lower safety margin. In addition to that, Wet Tantalum Capacitors can be operated at an excess voltage from 100 V to 630 V. Apart from that it has the lowest leakage current and a relatively low ESR than all other electrolytic capacitors.

Hope you liked the article on Tantalum Capacitors. Brands that manufacture these types of capacitors are Kemet, Vishay, and AVX. Make sure to check them out using the links as provided.

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A ceramic capacitor is regarded as the fixed value capacitor where the dielectric is a ceramic material. It is made up of alternating 2 or more layers of ceramic as well as a layer of metal that behaves like an electrode. The piece of the ceramic material characterizes electrical conduct and consequently applications. Ceramic capacitors can be categorized into 2 application classes:

• Class 1 Ceramic Capacitors – This type of ceramic capacitors provide low losses and high stability for resonant circuit applications.
• Class 2 Ceramic Capacitors – It provides high volumetric efficiency for coupling, by-pass, and buffer applications.

Ceramic capacitors are one of that electrical equipment that is the most used ones. They are available in different sizes and shapes and are utilized in capacitors for EMI / RFI suppression, power capacitors for transmitters and as feed-through capacitors.

Application Classes – Definitions

The distinctive ceramic materials utilized for making ceramic capacitors like ferroelectric or paraelectric ceramics impacts the electrical attributes of the capacitors. Utilizing the mixture of paraelectric substance that is in light of titanium dioxide brings about entirely steady and linear capacitance value within a pre-defined range of temperature and low losses at high frequencies. The mixture as said above has a low value of permittivity such that the capacitance of these capacitors is generally less.

To get a high value of capacitance in ceramic capacitors, a mixture of ferroelectric materials, like barium titanate, and its specific oxides should be used. The permittivity value of this dielectric material is much higher but the capacitance is non-linear over the range of temperature, and the loss at high frequency is much higher. These features of ceramic capacitors need to be grouped into "application classes". Let's have a look at each of them.

• Class 1 Ceramic Capacitors – Class 1 Ceramic Capacitors are much accurate and temperature-redressing capacitors. They provide the most steady and stable temperature, voltage as well as frequency to some extent. Because they have low losses, they are generally suitable for resonant circuit applications. The fundamental materials required for making Class 1 Ceramic Capacitors consist of paraelectric materials (finely ground granules) like TiO₂ (Titanium Dioxide) altered by added substances of Zirconium, Tantalum, Niobium, Zinc, Strontium, Cobalt and Magnesium. All of these are important to get the desired linear characteristics of the capacitors.

• Class 2 Ceramic Capacitors – Class 2 Ceramic Capacitors have a high permittivity along with a dielectric and because of this, it has a much better volumetric efficiency than Class 1 Capacitors. But still, it has lower stability and accuracy than the Class 1 Capacitors. The ceramic dielectric is described by a nonlinear difference in capacitance over the temperature run. The capacitance value of the capacitor also relies on the applied voltage. They are good for coupling, decoupling and bypass applications.

This was all we have regarding Ceramic Disc capacitors. Hope you liked going through the article. Brands that manufacture them are Vishay, Murata, and TDK. Make sure to follow them using the links as provided.

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