Taiyo Yuden (U.S.A.), Inc., announcesd a new addition to its line-up of high-performance multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC). The nine models in the new WK series employ "reverse geometry" terminations and other design improvements to provide what the company claims is industry-leading performance relative to device size.
The WK series maximum capacitance values are, respectively, 0.47µF, 4.7µF and 10µF in the 0402, 0603 and 0805 case sizes. These ratings represent an almost two-fold performance improvement over previous company devices of equal size. The new WK series includes what the company claims is the industry’s smallest low-ESL devices (now in 0402) and highest-capacitance values for both 0603 and 0805. Available voltage ratings are 4V (0402; 0603), 6.3V (0603; 0805) and 16V (0805).
Representing Taiyo Yuden’s entry into the low-ESL (Equivalent Series Inductance) capacitor market, the new reverse-geometry MLCCs are so named because their length-to-width ratio has been reversed. Forming the electrodes on the long dimension of the device, instead of end-wise, widens and shortens the current path between terminations, thus reducing inductance and resistance – a particularly desirable attribute for decoupling circuits.
Today’s high-clock-speed CPUs are boosting demand for lower ESL values in the decoupling capacitors used to help stabilize system operation. Achieving low ESL used to require using many capacitors in parallel, resulting in circuit layout constraints and higher costs. Taiyo Yuden’s years of expertise in size reduction and thin-layering technology, enhanced by recent advances in terminal electrode formation, led to the successful development of the reverse-geometry WK series, which greatly reduces the number of required capacitors and facilitates the design of lower-cost decoupling circuits.
