Bit of good info here......The shortages of 2000 soured a lot of...

Bit of good info here......

The shortages of 2000 soured a lot of companies that were dependent on tantalum capacitors for their products to ship. Many companies designed out tantalum capacitors in favor of ceramic capacitors and searched for other low cost alternatives such as polymer and niobium capacitors.

"Some people have a bad taste in their mouth about tantalum because of what happened two years ago," says Lane. "Some people are going to polymer capacitors. We are going to be doing that as well. But we have also introduced a niobium oxide capacitor," he says.

"Niobium oxide offers more avenues for growth because the material is available," says Lane. "It is very robust, almost as robust as a ceramic type material. It is lead free. It does not ignite at low voltages. A lot of people have switched to a polymer type tantalum because they are under the impression it is a different base material, but it is still tantalum," says lane.

He adds that many companies are using polymer capacitors for safety reasons because polymer doesn't burn. "Niobium oxide actually is less prone to burn than polymer and is a lower cost material and it is very abundant," says Lane.

He says a lot of OEMs in the consumer industry are going to lead-free solutions. "When you start using polymer in lead free applications, you have to solder at high temperatures an a lot of the polymer will not withstand that. Oxide will," he says.

Smith says that tantalum has advantages over other types of capacitors. "Tantalum's advantage is it has a high capacitance value (CV) ratio relative to its size. As the size of equipment shrinks, CV becomes more important. "It can be made in any size or shape and used in many applications.

Another trend to watch is capacitors with low ESR ratings.

A growing amount of equipment requires low ESR capacitors including power supplies, cell phones and any battery operated electronic equipment. "The higher the ESR, the more leakage you're going to have and the more drain you are going to have on a battery," says Lane. "The lowest energy loss you have in that circuit, the longer the battery lasts. Anybody who is concerned about energy drain and energy loss is going to be interested in low ESR," he says.

Smith expects demand for all capacitors including low ESR tantalum capacitors to pick up soon.

"We should start seeing an upturn towards the end of the year or in the first part of next year as capacity comes in line with demand and inventory has been reduced," says Smith.

He notes that 400 million cell phones will ship this year and phones use a lot of tantalum capacitors. "About 150 million computers will ship and the new growth items look like they are products that consolidate the personal digital assistant, cell phone and pocket computer," says Smith.

"The computer market is over due in terms of upgrading. Computer demand should be better next year. The military market is increasing which will be reflected in the component market next year," he says. Medical equipment, instrumentation and consumer electronics equipment should post strong shipments next year which will drive tantalum capacitor demand.


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