MLCCs are important passive components and were born in the 1960s. Because of its advantages such as high reliability, small size, low loss, and easy placement, it has quickly become the preferred type of capacitor in the electronics industry. With the development of various electronic industries such as household appliances, computers, network equipment, mobile phones, and automobiles, the market usage of MLCC has greatly increased, and it has become “industrial electronic rice”.
MLCC capacitor ceramic capacitors use ceramics as the dielectric, spray a silver layer on the ceramic substrate, and fire the silver film as the plate at a low temperature. The MLCC capacitor is a capacitor formed by one-time high-temperature sintering of ceramic dielectric diaphragms with printed electrodes that are stacked and combined multiple times in a dislocation manner. Because MLCC capacitors are stacked and combined in a dislocation manner, MLCC capacitors are much smaller than other capacitors, and their volume is about the same size as a grain of rice. This is also a major advantage for smartphones. MLCC capacitors have excellent performance, and have the advantages of high reliability, high precision, high frequency, intelligence, low power, miniaturization, and large capacity. They are used in smartphones. A smartphone probably uses more than a thousand ceramic capacitors. More than 8,000 ceramic capacitors are used in automobiles, and smartphones and automobiles have a large demand for MLCC capacitors
MLCC is the most used component in almost all electronic products. Its characteristics will affect the performance of the entire electronic product in many ways. Therefore, the requirements for MLCC are also very extreme. The development direction of MLCC driven by this is mainly in four aspects.
1.Miniaturization-MLCCs
Miniaturization is the most significant direction for the development of MLCC technology. Early MLCCs were mainly used in military products and had no special requirements for volume. With the industrialization of MLCCs, especially after base metalization, they are widely used in consumer electronics and closely cooperate with consumer electronics. Electronic thinner and smarter requirements, continuous miniaturization development, in order to reduce product weight, save mounting space and cooperate with dense component mounting.
At present, the most typical small-size MLCC is the 01005 size (imperial system, the same below), which is widely used in smart phones, chip packaging, wearable products and highly integrated modules. Its length and width are only 0.04mm*0.02mm, and the naked eye can Can’t see clearly. In addition, there is a smaller generation of 008004 size, the length and width are only 0.02mm*0.01mm, and the particle size of the main powder materials has entered the submicron or even nanometer level.
2.High capacity-MLCCs
Because MLCC has the advantages of stable electrical performance, non-polarity, and high reliability, driven by the trend of replacing electrolytic capacitors, it promotes its high-capacity development to achieve a wider range of replacements, and for the same MLCC size, the capacity is also constant. promote. At present, the size of MLCC above 0805 has been mass-produced to 100μF, and the size of 0201 in the small size has also covered 4.7μF and 2.2μF.
3.The direction of high reliability
With the expansion of MLCC application scenarios, the reliability requirements of MLCC are getting higher and higher, the most representative of which is the car gauge series. The intelligentization of automobiles and the rise and development of new energy vehicles have greatly increased the demand for automotive-grade MLCCs, making automotive-grade products an important direction for the MLCC industry.
4.High frequency
The application of wireless communication technology is becoming more and more abundant, especially the development of 4G and 5G technology, more products are connected and intelligently controlled, and the demand for matching RF components is greatly increased, and the requirements for RF performance are getting higher and higher. RF MLCC achieves low ESR, strong anti-interference, high SRF and other characteristics through the design improvement of the internal structure of the component, the optimization of the microwave ceramic dielectric material, and the copper electrode material with low loss characteristics.
