MLCC is the abbreviation of Multi-layer ceramic capacitor. Although its size is small, its capacity is large. It is often used in various circuits such as decoupling, smoothing of power supply voltage, and filtering.

It is the most widely used type of chip components. It is a multi-layer alternate stack of internal electrode materials and ceramic bodies in parallel, and co-fired into a whole, also known as chip monolithic capacitors, with small size, With the characteristics of high specific volume and high precision, it can be mounted on printed circuit boards and hybrid integrated circuit substrates, effectively reducing the volume and weight of electronic information terminal products and improving product reliability.

MLCC can play the role of storing charge, blocking DC, filtering, combining, distinguishing different frequencies and tuning circuits in electronic circuits. It can partially replace organic film capacitors and electrolytic capacitors in high-frequency switching power supplies, computer network power supplies and mobile communication equipment, and greatly improve the filtering performance and anti-interference performance of high-frequency switching power supplies.

Features of MLCCs

1. Bypass

MLCC has many functions. The primary function is bypass, which is an energy storage device that provides energy for local devices. It can make the output of the voltage stabilizer uniform and reduce the load demand. Like a small rechargeable battery, the bypass capacitor can be charged and discharged to the device. To minimize impedance, bypass capacitors should be placed as close as possible to the power supply and ground pins of the load device. This is a good protection against ground potential rise and noise caused by excessive input values. Ground potential is the voltage drop across the ground connection through a high current glitch.

2. Decoupling

The second is decoupling. The decoupling capacitor acts as a "battery" to meet the change of the current of the drive circuit and avoid mutual coupling interference. It will be easier to understand by combining bypass and decoupling capacitors. The bypass capacitor is actually decoupled, but the bypass capacitor generally refers to the high-frequency bypass, which is to improve a low-impedance leakage prevention way for the high-frequency switching noise.

3. Energy storage

In addition, the most important role is energy storage. The energy storage capacitor collects the charge through the rectifier and transfers the stored energy to the output of the power supply through the inverter leads. Aluminum electrolytic capacitors (such as B43504 or B43505 from EPCOS) with a voltage rating of 40 to 450 VDC and a capacitance of 220 to 150 000 μF are commonly used. Depending on the power supply requirements, devices are sometimes used in series, parallel, or a combination thereof. For power supplies with power levels exceeding 10KW, bulky can-shaped screw terminal capacitors are usually used.

Main application areas of MLCC

Compared with other ceramic capacitors, MLCC has gradually become the mainstream application of current ceramic capacitors because it can better meet the capacity requirements of modern electronic products without increasing the number and volume of components. At present, chip multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC) account for more than 90% of the ceramic capacitor market.

The main application areas of MLCC products are:

Consumer electronics - mobile phones, computers, tablets, cameras, smart wear, etc.

Automotive electronics - automotive, electronic products

Home appliances - LCD TVs, monitors, etc.

Among them, consumer electronics occupy more than 70% of the application space of the industry. On the smartphone side, multi-frequency bands increase the usage of passive components; the number of MLCCs in the flagship mobile phones of Apple and Samsung has exceeded 1,000. High-end smart flagship phones that support more frequency bands and are equipped with NFC modules are often equipped with a larger number of MLCCs, which expands the demand for passive components in the smart phone market.

With the in-depth development of science and technology, MLCC has gradually expanded to new energy power generation, new energy vehicles, energy-saving lamps, rail transit, DC power transmission and transformation, triple play, high-definition TV, set-top box, mobile TV and other industries.

Source: oneriver