Amy, John W,. here's a well researched article that discusses the tantalum capacitor situation and OEMs switching to ceramic, electrolytic, conductive polymer, or film capacitors because of the shortage in tantalum.
ebnews.com
It's been a while, John W. can correct me, but tantalums have always had several unsavory characteristics: large size, polarity requirements...plug them in backwards and they don't do anything, or may burn, nasty for circuit boards and extra work for auto-insertion equipment. Ceramics were always the best...small, no polarity requirement good high frequency characteristics. However, they didn't have the high microfarad of low frequency bypass characteristics of tantalum.
I have to ask the questions: does Jonathan Joseph know anything about the difference between these various types of capacitors? If not was he being responsible commenting on the whole semiconductor industry, with his limited understanding?
Tony |
