Recent advances in material technology and design have allowed multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) to extend beyond replacing electrolytic capacitors in output filtering applications. While still offering the attributes of ultra low ESR and high ripple current capability, MLCCs with higher effective capacitance, thermal/mechanical robustness, and stability have been developed.
In response to power design challenges, MLCC development trends have resulted in a variety of new series of application solutions such as X7S, Soft Term, and Mega-Cap. These offer small size, Pb-free soldering process compatibility, wide operating temperature/voltage range for applications such as input filtering, resonant circuits and low Q decoupling. Portions of various power topologies will be used to illustrate the use of MLCCs in power design.

Author: Michael Cannon | Presented at APEC 2011 The Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition | Product Portal : Chip Capacitors

A common scenario: A design engineer inserts a ferrite bead into a circuit experiencing EMC problems, only to find that the bead has actually caused the unwanted to noise to be WORSE. How can this be? Aren’t ferrite beads supposed to remove noise energy and not make the problem worse?
The answer to this question is fairly simple, but may not be widely understood outside of those who work a majority of their time solving EMI issues. Simply put, a ferrite bead is not a ferrite bead is not a ferrite bead, etc. Most ferrite bead manufacturers provide a table which lists their part number, the impedance at some given frequency (usually 100 MHz), the DC resistance (DCR), a maximum current rating and some dimensional information (see Table 1). All pretty much standard stuff. What is not shown in the data table is material information and the respective performance characteristics over frequency.

Author: Chris Burket | Printed in IN Compliance Magazine | Product Portal : Ferrites

Flip chip thermosonic back end assembly method is a low cost clean gold to gold interconnection method. The advancement of flip chip thermosonic process for CSP packaging of HBLED and CMOS image sensors is occurring due to the precision intermetallic clean interconnection properties and ability to provide a small form factor packaging to consumer products. This paper will investigate thermosonic metal to metal interconnection process for these high growth assembly markets.

Author: Phil Couts | Product Portal : Factory Automation

The increasing demand for the transfer of higher volumes of information and the evolution of techniques allowing faster transfer of data between devices have had an important influence in the development of digital interfaces and signaling standards that allow internal and external data transfer at faster speeds.
There are two major driving forces in the development of data transfer and encoding methods. The first driving force is the convergence of PC and multimedia technologies. Second is the increasing need for interoperability between different and more capable digital multimedia devices able to interconnect and exchange digital content.

Author(s): Rafael Perez Magana | Printed in Conformity Magazine | Product Portal : EMC Components

Wireless network design engineers have capitalized on the low ESR/High Q characteristic of multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) for impedance matching in RF and filter circuits. Also, MLCCs used in EMC applications for bypassing and/or decoupling have traditionally viewed this characteristic as beneficial. However, recent increases in microprocessor operating speeds, coupled with a desire for more tightly controlled voltage variation, are challenging this point of view. The Low ESR/High Q MLCC characteristic is not always an advantage, and in fact, may be considered an obstacle in some designs and applications.
Selecting a capacitor with specific ESR characteristics and applying it in the correct manner, can form a more stable, low impedance floor across a wider frequency range. Such performance greatly improves the efficiency of low impedance PDN designs. By utilizing a unique MLCC design, TDK can provide controlled ESR capacitors for such market needs.

Author(s): Masaaki Togashi | Presented at DesignCon 2007 by Chris Burket
| Product Portal : Chip Capacitors