The focus of competition between ceramic capacitors and tantalum capacitors is small and large-capacity capacitors. The most competitive multilayer ceramic capacitors have been mass-produced. The shell size is 1608, the capacity is 10µF, and 22µF can also be mass-produced. However, there are many problems in the user's response when the product is put on the market, such as: too thin, easy to crack, buzzing (material vibration noise) ), low temperature characteristics, poor bias performance, etc. In addition, the actual capacitance of 10µF capacitors is low, making it difficult to develop thin products. Tantalum capacitors do not have the above-mentioned problems of ceramic capacitors. The new production line improves the capacity of 0.8mm products below 1mm, and the lower electrode is more effective.
Tantalum capacitors have strong advantages in large capacity in the past, and conductive polymer products are also being developed, and new polymer tantalum capacitors have lower ESR than aluminum capacitors. Capacitors also pose a threat.
1. Open up a new market for standard tantalum capacitors
With the multi-functional development of electronic products such as mobile phones, digital home appliances, notebook computers and automotive electronics, it has brought opportunities for the development of tantalum capacitors. At present, mobile phones have functions such as recording, photography, and high-speed Internet communication, and it is required to enhance these functions. In order to meet the high current application of the whole machine, it is very necessary to save power and remove noise. Mobile phone manufacturers want to be able to supply large-capacity, low-ESR capacitors above 100µF and low-frequency, low-noise tantalum capacitors that control noise from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, but ceramic capacitors cannot meet these requirements, so manufacturers respond to market demand. Tantalum capacitors in the hundreds of microfarads.
The digitalization of other capacitors is also developing rapidly, and noise and power are a big problem (such as noise from audio/video appliances, flat-panel TVs, automotive electronics, game consoles, etc.), while tantalum capacitors do not have the above problems, developed by a Japanese company. The "new capacitor" market is optimistic.
2. Can the market share of tantalum capacitors expand
The world tantalum capacitor market scale is 2.0-2.2 billion pieces per month. It should be said that manganese dioxide electrode type tantalum capacitors have reached their limit. The only growth potential is conductive polymer electrode type tantalum capacitors. The sales of "new tantalum capacitors" produced by NEC have grown steadily. It can be said that the expansion of the tantalum capacitor market mainly refers to the increase in sales of "new tantalum capacitors". As a result, polymer electrodes have replaced some manganese electrode capacitors, and the total growth of real tantalum capacitors is not much.
