Fail safe ceramic capacitors target automotive applications
Murata has announced the launch of its GCE series of monolithic ceramic capacitors.
The devices are designed for safety critical automotive applications and are said to be less prone to mechanical stress failure. Their capacitive element has a soft termination so that the mechanical stress induced by board flexing or a variation of temperature is less likely to cause the capacitor body to crack.
This is achieved by using a conductive resin for the terminations and, according to Murata, increases the body's ability to absorb such stress. The company says that by using a multi layer serial capacitor approach to the construction, the GCE series will not easily short circuit. An internal floating plate is optimised to create an equivalent circuit of two capacitors in series to help achieve this.
The capacitors are available in 0603 and 0805 sizes, covering all nominal working voltages between 50 and 100V.
