Ceramic Capacitors – Which Aspects To Consider When Using Them In Your Design?

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Ceramic Capacitors - Which Aspects to Consider
When Using Them In Your Design?
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Ceramic Capacitors Which Aspects To
CCeroamnicsCaipdaceitorrs Wor mhulteilayner
cUerasmiicncagpacTitohrs (eMLmCC)Ianre thYe
mooust rcomDmeonsly uisgednty?pe
of capacitors now a days. This fame can be
attributed to their low cost and small size. But
there are other factors that are important to
consider when you choose capacitors in your
circuit design. The most important ones are
listed below.

• Table of Content
• CV Rating of the Capacitor
• ESR
• DC Bias Loss
• Temperature And Voltage Variation of Ceramic
  Capacitors
• What are those COG (NPO) Type Ceramic Capacitors
  Why Use them?
• Conclusion
• CV Rating Of The Capacitor
• For designing space-constrained boards,
  capacitors offering higher capacitance as well as
  higher voltage in small size are valuable for
  space saving.
• The CV rating reflects the volumetric efficiency
  of a capacitor and its chemistry. In general, the
  higher the capacitance, the larger the volume of
  the capacitor. And given some capacitance value,
  the higher the voltage rating, the larger the
  volume of the capacitor. So when a capacitor has
  a high CV rating, that means that it is
  volumetrically efficient, and offers a small
  physical size compared to other capacitor types.

2
3/14/23, 206 PM Ceramic Capacitors - Which
Aspects to Consider When Using Them In Your
Design? Reference https//www.physicsforums.com/t
hreads/cv-rating-of-a-capacitor.269285/
(https//www.physicsforums.com/threads/cv-rating-o
f-a-capacitor.269285/) Among the capacitor types
of film capacitors, ceramic capaOcitoxrs,eallutmei
nucmhelectrolytic and aluminum polymer, ceramic
capacitors offer the best CV rating. Even within
ceramic capacitors, different products could
offer varying CV rating. You may need to pay a
bit more for higher CV rating ceramic
capacitor. ESR ESR stands for Equivalent Series
Resistance. It is a characteristic which has both
pros and cons. On one hand youd like some
series resistance because it damps the signal and
makes the design of the control loop easier. If
you completely eliminate ESR, youll have
ringing. On the other hand, increased ESR
increases the ripple which is undesired e.g. in
applications such as low pass filters. In low
pass filter, in fact, ripple is what youre
primarily trying to reduce. Read more on the
topic of ESR in the articles below Relationship
Between ESR, Loss Tangent, Dissipation Factor,
and Q (https//www.youtube.com/watch?v-
eH9eMnM4qMlistPL05oO9foDKMQGmcO2C9JsXyGqXZUXMD1h
) Methods and Problems of ESR measurements
(http//www.mouser.com/pdfdocs/MethodsandProblemsm
easuringESR.pdf) Measure Capacitor ESR with an
Oscilloscope and Function Generator
(https//www.youtube.com/watch?v115erzCCxgE) http
//www.low-esr.com (http//www.low-esr.com/) Among
the different types of capacitors, ceramic
capacitors come out to be low ESR but have the
potential for ringing. Read more about the
comparison of different capacitors from ESR and
ringing point of view here Choosing the Correct
Capacitor Type for Your Power Supply
(https//www.youtube.com/watch?vIMa_zj7YYvUt8s
ab_channelBiricha)
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Ceramic Capacitors - Which Aspects to Consider
When Using Them In Your Design?
Oxeltech
Figure 1 ESR vs Frequency of different capacitor
types Source https//www.murata.com/en-eu/suppor
t/faqs/capacitor/ceramiccapacitor/char/0026 The
right choice of capacitor isnt lowest ESR,
rather it is usually the one which gives a nice,
flat impedance curve without resonances (AL and
TA caps in the graph above). Ceramic capacitors,
as evident from the photo above, has a sharp
resonance frequency. So when using ceramic
capacitors, this needs to be considered and
ringing/resonance should be prevented by other
means. DC Bias Loss High-capacity, multilayer
ceramic capacitors (MLCC) have a property often
not well understood by electronic designers the
capacitance of these devices reduced with
increase in applied DC voltage. The capacitor
rating for ceramic capacitors is shown in the
datasheet at 0V. The manufacturers measure the
capacitance around the capacitor using an AC
signal around 0V. If you increase the DC voltage
on ceramic capacitors, the capacitance drops and
that is called the DC bias loss.
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Ceramic Capacitors - Which Aspects to Consider
When Using Them In Your Design?
Oxeltech
Figure 2. Relative capacity as a function of bias
voltage for a 2.2µF/16V MLCC. Image Credits
https//www.maximintegrated.com/en/design/technica
l- documents/tutorials/6/6014.html
(https//www.maximintegrated.com/en/design/technic
al- documents/tutorials/6/6014.html) This loss
is particular to ceramic capacitors and other
types of capacitors such as film capacitors and
aluminum electrolytics capacitors do not suffer
from this phenomenon. Also See Application note
6014, How to Measure Capacity Versus Bias
Voltage on MLCCs (https//www.maximintegrated.com
/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/6014).
Temperature And Voltage Variation Of Ceramic
Capacitors The most common capacitor in ceramic
type youve heard is probably X7R. Usually, the
design engineers rely on the following table to
decide which capacitors to use for their
specific application
1st Character Low Temp Degree Celsius 2nd Character High Temp Degree Celsius 3rd Character Change over Temp (max) Tolerance in Capacitance
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Ceramic Capacitors - Which Aspects to Consider
When Using Them In Your Design?
Z 10 2 45 A 1.0
Y -30 4 65 B Oxeltech 1.5
X -55 5 85 C 2.2
6 105 D 3.3
7 125 E 4.7
8 150 F 7.5
9 200 P 10
R 15
S 22
T 22, -33
U 22, -56
V 22, -82
But a closer look at capacitor data sheets will
tell you that this is not the whole story. See
the following graph
Figure 3. Temperature variation vs. DC voltage
for select 4.7µF capacitors. Image Credits
https//www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index
.mvp/id/5527 (https//www.maximintegrated.com/en/
app-notes/index.mvp/id/5527) It clearly shows
that the value of capacitor depends not only on
the tolerance given in its name (e.g. 15 for
X7R) but also on the exact volts the capacitor
faces.
6
3/14/23, 206 PM Ceramic Capacitors - Which
Aspects to Consider When Using Them In Your
Design? You didnt expect that, did you?
Here is a very comprehensive article by a Senior
Principal Member of Technical Staff at Maxim
Integrated, that covers this concept and others
in detail. Oxeltech Application Note 5527
Temperature And Voltage Variation Ceramic
Capacitor (https//www.maximintegrated.com/en/des
ign/technical-documents/tutorials/5/5527.html) Wh
at Are Those COG (NPO) Type Ceramic Capacitors
Why Use Them? X7R, Y5V etc are so called Class
II and Class III ceramic capacitors, however, COG
(NPO) are Class I capacitors. Class I capacitors
are more stable across environmental variations
and do not exhibit piezo effects. Thats why COG
(NPO) are recommended for circuits requiring low
loss, circuits with pulse, timing circuits and
tuning applications. The downside is that they
are not as volumetrically efficient as X7R
etc. COG (NPO) type ceramic capacitors often
have even lower ESR and can pose worse risks of
resonance and ringing, but most of the
applications such as low pass filters and
decoupling etc, this type is considered an
overkill anyway. Conclusion Ceramic capacitors
offer high volumetric efficiency and are low
cost, which are two important concerns for many
applications now a days across different
industries. However, there are no free lunches.
Electronics Engineers need to be aware of the
limitations of ceramic capacitors which include
but arent limited to resonance/ringing due to
low ESR and DC bias loss. With careful
considerations in the design process, these
limitations can be overcome. If you any query
regarding Ceramic Capacitors or their
applications or any other hardware design
challenge in general, feel free to Contact Us
(https//www.oxeltech.de/contact-us) for our
consultancy. Team Oxeltech May 8,
2022(https//oxeltech.de/en/2022/05/08/) 1051 am
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