Low ESR and Low Profile Technology on Niobium Oxide

Increasing demand for tantalum capacitors at the end of last millennium accelerated simultaneously the search for new technologies, which were able to solve the drawbacks of tantalum technology – the limited source chain, tantalum cost and its susceptibility to certain low level ppm of thermal runaway failures.

One of the newest technologies, NbO capacitors have launched into the market during the last 2 years. It’s significant similarities to tantalum capacitors with such benefits as non burning feature, lower cost, surge robustness and excellent reliability is raising other questions to other NbO potentials, like voltage range, derating, ESR and miniaturisation. This paper gives a summarising overview of these new NbO technology capabilities.