Hydrometallurgical Process for Tantalum Recovery from Epoxy-Coated Solid Electrolyte Tantalum Capacitors

Reliability of Solid Tantalum Capacitors

Characterization of Tantalum Polymer Capacitors

Solid-electrolyte tantalum capacitors were first developed and commercially produced in the 1950s. They represented a quantum leap forward in miniaturization and reliability over existing wound-foil wet electrolytic capacitors. While the solid tantalum capacitor has dramatically improved electrical performance versus wet-electrolyte capacitors, especially at low temperatures, today’s electronic...

Reverse Bias Behavior of Surface Mount Solid Tantalum Capacitors

Solid tantalum capacitors are polarized devices designed to operate only under forward voltage bias conditions. Application of reverse voltage may produce high leakage currents with potentially destructive results. Such misapplications of these devices sometimes occur during bench testing, troubleshooting of engineering modules and/or during some malfunctions in operating systems. However, more...

Reliability Effects with Proofing of Tantalum Capacitors

In traditional tantalum capacitors, the construction consists of a tantalum anode, Ta2O5 dielectric, and MnO2 as the cathode. The benefit of having MnO2, as the cathode, is the self-healing effect it provides. The conversion of MnO2 to a higher resistive state allows fault sites within the dielectric to be shut off from the rest of the capacitor. To mitigate problems developed during reflow, it...

Tantalum Capacitors in Power Supply Applications

The capacitance range for tantalum capacitors spans from singular microfarads (uFd) through a thousand microfarads. It is an electrolytic type of capacitor that can utilize either a liquid type of electrolyte or a solid state material as the cathode connection. The anode construction utilizes the high porosity of the pressed tantalum material to create an enormous amount of surface area to prod...