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Niobium Capacitor
FAQ
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Why
was a niobium capacitor developed?
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The rarity
of the mineral tantalum makes it vulnerable to supply
shortages and sudden price jumps. This was particularly
apparent last year, when a shortage of tantalum caused
the price to rise to a 20-year high, making it impossible
to supply products to some customers. With at least 100
times more deposits than tantalum, niobium offers stability
in terms of both supply and price. Also, because we can
produce a niobium capacitor that has almost the same quality
as a tantalum capacitor, we are able to offer customers
a stable supply of small-size high-capacity solid electrolytic
capacitors. This is why we developed a niobium capacitor.
Moreover, with today's market demanding higher capacity,
the cost merits of niobium, if the supply is increased,
will enable us to proceed with commercialization of high-capacity
products, which we were unable to do with tantalum due
to its supply and cost uncertainties. |
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Is
the quality of a niobium capacitor exactly the same as
that of a tantalum capacitor?
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The leakage
current characteristics of niobium are slightly inferior
to those of tantalum. However, the polymer-type niobium
capacitor developed this time achieves an almost equivalent
quality level to that of current polymer-type capacitors
due to the employment of an original fabrication method.
Although leakage current and other characteristics do
not quite match those of the NeoCapacitor PS/L Series,
we can produce a niobium capacitor to be included in this
series lineup. |
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What
was the breakthrough that led to the successful development
of this capacitor?
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The thermostability
of niobium is intrinsically bad, but by using our original
technology, we were able to stabilize the formation of
a dielectric niobium oxide film. Also, following the start
of full-scale employment of niobium by capacitor manufacturers,
niobium suppliers have made significant efforts to raise
the quality of their materials, leading to considerable
advances in Hi-CV (granulation). As a result, we achieved
our aim of a capacity almost the same as that of tantalum.
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Have
plans to develop a niobium capacitor been on the drawing
board for some time?
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Niobium
has been known as a mineral for longer than tantalum,
and the potential for using a dielectric niobium oxide
film as a capacitor dielectric has been indicated for
more than 20 years. In fact, most manufacturers have already
experimented with producing a niobium capacitor, but have
failed due to the problems in the characteristics mentioned
above, which have remained unresolved until now. |
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It
is rumored that other companies have also developed a
niobium capacitor.
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A European
manufacturer announced the development of a niobium capacitor
in January this year, but this was a manganese type, not
a polymer type. Recently, there has been a great demand
for low ESR in the high-capacity band, in which the cost
merits of niobium capacitors are particularly striking.
At NEC, by placing emphasis on the development of a niobium
capacitor that uses the conductive polymer that was so
successful in the NeoCapacitor, we have overcome considerable
technological difficulties to produce a product that answers
the needs of today's market. It would be fair to say,
therefore, that compared with the manganese-type capacitors
developed by other companies, we have produced a "next-generation"
type niobium capacitor. |
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Does
NEC make a manganese-type niobium capacitor?
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Polymer Capacitor (NeoCapacitor) capacitors, whether niobium or tantalum,
are extremely difficult to make from a technological point
of view. We could manufacture a manganese type capacitor,
but due to the superior features of the polymer type in
the high-capacity band, such as better ESR characteristics
and non-combustibility, we have no particular plan to
include a manganese-type capacitor in our lineup. If we
find there is a demand for a manganese-type capacitor,
we will consider producing one. |
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Why
is a 2.5 V/220 mF capacitor
the only type available?
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This product
is only for sample shipment and for checking the performance.
Volume production may be difficult at the moment because
the materials suppliers are still preparing their production
lines. We plan to start enhancing our lineup in line with
the completion of these preparations (which is estimated
to be in 2002). |
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How
can we obtain a sample?
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Please contact
the following NEC TOKIN sales department.
TEL : 03-3402-9412 |
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What
are the future development plans for niobium capacitors?
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Although
niobium capacitors are more difficult to manufacture than
tantalum ones, we expect that the increased supply of
niobium compared with tantalum will enable a reduction
in development costs. We therefore plan to focus development
of niobium capacitors in the high-capacity band (1000
uF or higher), where the cost of producing a tantalum
capacitor is prohibitive. Our aim for the future is to
produce a chip product (surface mount product) for each
capacity in the electrolytic capacitor range. |
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Can
we obtain more detailed information than that contained
in the press release?
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This site
includes all the information available at this point.
This site will be updated as soon as more information
becomes available. |
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