EMC Question of the Week: October 16, 2017

Circuit Board and SMT Components

The main advantage that X7R capacitors have over NP0 capacitors is that X7R capacitors,

  1. can have higher nominal values for a given package size
  2. are more stable with temperature
  3. are more stable with applied voltage
  4. are non-polarized

Answer

The correct answer is "a". X7R capacitors are Class 2 ceramic capacitors. They have good volumetric efficiency compared to Class 1 ceramic capacitors (like NP0 capacitors); however the value of their capacitance can vary significantly with applied voltage and temperature. X7R capacitors are commonly used for printed circuit decoupling, while NP0 capacitors are preferred for applications where very stable capacitance values are required. Generally, all ceramic capacitors are non-polarized, meaning they do not have terminals designated as positive and negative.

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