New Industry Products

Vishay Offers Samples of Niobium Solid Capacitors

September 23, 2001 by Jeff Shepard

Vishay Intertechnology Inc. (Malvern, PA) announced that it is sampling solid capacitors utilizing niobium as the anode material.

Research teams at Vishay have developed a new patent-pending manufacturing technique that yields solid niobium capacitors with a conventional MnO2 cathode that can be used as drop-in replacements for devices built with tantalum.

The first solid niobium capacitors to come from Vishay include devices in the industry-standard 293D, 292D, and 595D form factors, which will be used for output filtering in cell phones, PCs, dc-to-dc converter modules and a wide range of portable electronic systems. The new niobium devices will be used as socket- and specification-compatible alternatives to 4V to 16V solid tantalum capacitors, as well as high-capacitance MLCCs and certain mid-range surface-mount aluminum capacitors.

Dr. Felix Zandman, chairman and CEO of Vishay, stated, "With this technological breakthrough, Vishay will be able to remove a source of uncertainty in our customers' supply chains. Our niobium capacitors deliver equivalent performance to tantalum, but are built on a raw material for which there are no significant availability problems or price fluctuations."

Solid niobium capacitors being sampled by Vishay now feature DCL and equivalent series resistance limits that are equal to corresponding tantalum capacitors. Voltage rating options are 6WVdc and 10WVdc with capacitance levels ranging from 10µF to 1,000µF. The devices are rated for an extended -55 to +85 degrees Celsius operating temperature range and a derating temperature of +125 degrees Celsius.

Evaluation samples of these devices are available now in conventional lead-frame molded chip packaging, in Vishay's high-performance "conformal" chip packaging, and in the newly developed 292D molded leadless chip package.