Tantalum

Tantalum Capacitors are used in various electronic applications for buffering and filtering which are having a focus on high reliability, long life time, high environmental temperatures or smaller size, as automotive electronic or power supplies, mobile phones, 3g/4G modems, laptop PCs or medical equipment, to name just a few.
Tantalum capacitors are electrolytic capacitors based on pressed Tantalum metal powder then sintered and attached to a tantalum wire to form the anode.
The dielectric is set by an electrochemical acid process which oxidizes on the surface. The cathode of Manganese dioxide (MnO₂) is created during a high temperature process and is connected to by a graphitic carbon and a silver layer to the cathode termination.
Tantalum capacitors have the highest capacitance to volume ration of all capacitors due to their specific monolithic construction and as well as mechanically very robust component structure.
They are available in various packages as chip, molded SMD or leaded dipped or leaded axial.
Polymer Tantalum capacitors are using conductive polymers as cathode materials; else the construction is comparable to the MnO₂ equivalent. Their specific construction show ESR values in the range as known from multi layer chip capacitors (MLCC)
Wet Tantalum have a special constructions based either on Tantalum foils and a liquate electrolyte or on a Tantalum pellet with a liquid electrolyte, both with a cathode-case made out of Tantalum in a hermetic sealed construction. These products are used for applications with highest requirements on reliability, quality and robustness and temperature performance in military and industrial areas. Due to their construction operation voltage even significantly beyond 150V can be realized.

Main applications:

Automotive electronics systems
Equipment and systems of information and communications electronics
Consumer electronics equipment
Voltage stabilization circuits
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