What is the Difference Between Ceramic and Tantalum Electrolytic Capacitance?

Solid tantalum capacitor was first developed by Bell Laboratories in 1956. It has excellent performance. It is a product with small volume and large capacitance among all capacitors. Tantalum capacitors have a variety of shapes and can be easily made into small and chip components suitable for surface mounting. Solid tantalum capacitors meet the needs of electronic technology automation and miniaturization. Tantalum capacitors can be used in military communication, aerospace, industrial control, film and television equipment, communication instruments and other fields and products.

At present, there are three kinds of tantalum electrolytic capacitors: sintered solid, foil wound solid and sintered liquid. Among them, sintered solid accounts for more than 95% of the total production at present, and non-metallic sealed resin packaging is the main body. Chip sintered tantalum capacitors have gradually become the mainstream.

Ceramic capacitors are also known as ceramic capacitors or monolith capacitors. As the name implies, ceramic capacitor is a capacitor whose dielectric material is ceramic. According to different ceramic materials, it can be divided into low-frequency ceramic capacitors and high-frequency ceramic capacitors. According to the structure, it can be divided into round capacitor, tubular capacitor, rectangular capacitor, slice capacitor, through center capacitor and so on.

Ceramic capacitor is the general term of capacitor with ceramic material as medium. There are many kinds of them, and their dimensions are quite different. According to the applied voltage, ceramic capacitors can be divided into high voltage, medium voltage and low voltage ceramic capacitors. According to the temperature coefficient, ceramic capacitors with different dielectric constant can be divided into negative temperature coefficient, positive temperature coefficient, zero temperature coefficient, high dielectric constant and low dielectric constant. In addition, there are type I, II and III ceramic capacitors. Compared with other capacitors, ceramic capacitors have the advantages of high temperature, large specific capacity, good moisture resistance, small dielectric loss, and large range of capacitance temperature coefficient. Ceramic capacitors are widely used in electronic circuits with considerable amount.

So, what's the difference between ceramic capacitance and tantalum electrolytic capacitance? We can distinguish from the following aspects:

1. Different raw materials
As we all know, tantalum is used as the carrier of tantalum electrolytic capacitor, ceramic capacitor is used as the dielectric, the capacitance of ceramic capacitor is smaller than tantalum electrolytic capacitor, tantalum electrolytic capacitor can be reduced to small capacity, but the performance of ceramic capacitor is slightly worse when it is increased to large capacity. The performance of tantalum electrolytic capacitor is better than that of ceramic capacitor.

2. Different applications
Tantalum electrolytic capacitors can be used for coupling, filtering vibration bypass and other electronic circuits with large periodicity, while ceramic capacitors are mostly used in high frequency circuits. Under the same capacity environment, the tantalum electrolytic capacitor is relatively small in volume, its equivalent series resistance is lower than that of the ordinary electrolytic capacitor, its service life is longer, and it is also resistant to high temperature. But the key raw material of tantalum electrolytic capacitor is tantalum. The price of tantalum capacitor is very expensive, and it is usually used in advanced products. Ceramic capacitor is more suitable for ordinary household use.

3. Different prices
Ceramic capacitor is a relatively affordable capacitor, especially the ceramic capacitor with flat and round plug-in is cheap, and many conventional household appliances can be used. In recent years, with the continuous upgrading of technology, the capacity of ceramic capacitors is also becoming larger and larger. In addition to 4uf ceramic capacitors, ceramic capacitors are gradually becoming the mainstream, replacing tantalum electrolytic capacitors.