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Supplier to replace with niobium tantalum capacitor
In the fear of tantalum powder supply shortages and high prices, capacitor suppliers are increasing niobium electrolytic capacitor production, to use it as a kind of substitute products.
Several companies are planning to mass production of electrolytic capacitors at the beginning of next year, but there have been several companies already or plan to soon start to provide samples of such devices, including vishay intertechnology Inc., Japan's NEC and EPCOS in Munich, Germany.
Development of niobium capacitor has for several years, however, Vishay Smith says, only in the last year, for fear of coltan supply will not be enough to meet the needs of tantalum capacitors in the future, manufacturers have to speed up the development work in this aspect, coltan is a manufacturer of tantalum powder ore. Tantalum capacitor is a key to the original wireless phones and other portable products.
Because niobium sources more abundant, according to several current source of metal prices, the price of niobium at least 10 times than low. Suppliers said, this means that the lower the production cost of niobium capacitor. Other suppliers that niobium capacitor in the leakage current and temperature stability than tantalum capacitor.
However, AVX Corp., the application manager Chris Reynolds says, this limitation does not interfere with the capacitance in low voltage applications, tantalum capacitor has extensive use in this application. AVX Corp plans to start offering niobium capacitor samples at the end of the year.
