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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (37105)	9/1/2000 10:34:17 AM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Brian, Tantalum capacitors, ceramic capacitors, yes we went around on these when JJ came out with his grandstand call. Kyoto, Japan-based Murata. The company estimates that about 10 percent of the 2.2 billion ceramic capacitors it cranks out each month... Holy cow, to borrow from Phil Rizzuto, that's just ceramics, for just one month, from just one company!!!!!!! This one: >Capacitors are a small but necessary part of almost all electronic devices, acting as a sort of shock absorber for the circuit board. Then there's the "microprocessor, the brains of a personal computer." Does anyone else think they could cease and desist acting like readers are clueless wrt any technical knowledge at all? I mean, they don't call cars "the replacement for the horse and buggy anymore, do they"? Back off the high horse. Tony

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (37105)	9/1/2000 12:33:37 PM
From: Kirk ©	Respond to of 70976

Tantalum is much cheaper per unit of capacitance than Ceramic. It has terrible temperature performance but they are very good for consumer products that don't see wide temperature extremes. They also have a huge unit-to-unit variance in value so you don't want to use them in critical applications. I used to use Tantalum when space was at a premium and I needed a high value capacitor (usually for supply decoupling). There just might not be room in a cell phone for a ceramic capacitor where a Tantalum was used. Due to the temperature & absolute value problems, you don't want to use them where absolute values are critical which usually leaves supply decoupling. Their high frequency performance is not that good either so you still need a ceramic in parallel in many cases. They are usually NOT drop in replacements so you have to retool PC Boards and all the equipment to load the boards, etc.... hope this is useful. 8) Kirk out