Tantalum Chip for Mission Critical Applications – TheDevelopment of Established Reliability Versions of Low ESRand Failsafe Technologies

摘要

Tantalum Chip capacitors have long been used in power filtering / distribution applicationsrndue to their combination of high bulk capacitance, low ESR and excellent volumetricrnefficiency. Solid tantalum capacitors are also capable of being “voltage conditioned” tornWeibull Grade Established Reliability levels, which has resulted in a long history of usage inrnmission critical applications.rnThe demand for solutions with higher bulk capacitance and lower ESR continues for bothrncommercial and established reliability solutions along with increasing volumetric efficiencyrnand reducing real estate / payload. For typical established reliability applications, the voltagernrequirements within avionics and aerospace have remained stable as common bus voltagesrnfrom 5v to 28v remain unchanged. However, as system integration includes more high speedrnASICs and CPUs or data processing, there is an increasing trend to additional low voltagernapplications that require regulated power in the 1.5v to 3.3v range.rnThis paper discusses the technology behind, and characterization of, new establishedrnreliability low ESR tantalum capacitors that have been introduced for aerospace applications,rnfrom molded discrete chips to small outline microchips, stacked tantalum modules. NewrnEstablished Reliability failsafe (fused) tantalum technology is also presented. The use ofrnthese solutions, in a variety of applications from pulse power to high speed switchingrncircuits, is discussed, together with recommendations for wider scale serial and parallelrnconfigurations.