Made in different shapes, sizes and materials — and the reason why so many cool things work the way they do — capacitors may be the unsung heroes in the electronic components world. Let’s shed some light on this quirky, little device and why it packs such a technological wallop.

The proliferation of cell phones over recent years has brought along not only convenient communication and obnoxious ring tones, but also capacitor innovation. IndustryWeek this week brings up an interesting occurrence from a few years back, when cell phone demand was outstripping capacity. The reason? Well, yes, demand very much had something to do with this supply chain anomaly, but, more important, the high-tech industry was blindsided by an acute shortage of, you guessed it, capacitors.

…The tantalum capacitor was in such short supply and high demand for use in both computers and cell phones that one high-tech manufacturer was forced to cut its earnings estimate for the quarter. A leading PC maker, “gaming” the market the way the Hunt brothers cornered the silver market in the 1980s, saw fit to place orders for 10 times the amount they could use of these 15-cent to 25-cent devices. Yet another high-tech manufacturer bought up cell phone handsets to remove the capacitors for use in a new product.

“The huge spike in demand for cell phones caused unprecedented demand for these components,” said Bud Mathaisel, senior vice president and CIO at Solectron, a contract manufacturer for various electronics original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Fortunately, Solectron found a creative solution to the shortage, with engineering teams working with suppliers to redesign the component. “We began to shift suppliers to ceramic capacitors that cost $1.25 each,” Mathaisel said.

My guess is that it is because of the cell phone scare that we have capacitor innovation out the ying-yang, as Electronics Weekly points out in a recent news item about Epco’s double-layer capacitor, one of a number of changes at the German passive component maker. The firm has also streamlined its ceramic capacitors portfolio and, last month, signed a cooperative agreement with Taiyo Yuden. According to Epcos, one reason for the decision was a realization that the outlook for successful high-volume marketing of double-layer capacitors had deteriorated.

RF Global Net also keeps a close watch on the development of capacitors and has the lowdown on a series of new “tantalum” chip capacitors designed to provide high-quality screening and surge current testing capabilities:

Designed for safety-critical avionics and military applications such as radar and weapon systems, the new T95 capacitors offer designers a wide array of ratings not found in available MIL specifications. This differentiates these capacitors from commercial grade capacitors by featuring the required reliability and surge screening options necessary to ensure performance in Hi-Rel applications while still maintaining a maximum capacitance-voltage product, a figure of merit that measures the amount of energy a capacitor can store, and helps designers choose the best capacitor for their applications.

Meanwhile, EDN, in answering some burning questions about resistors, refers to significant rules regarding their voltage relationship with capacitors:

If, for example, you have a 0.25W resistor, you look on the appropriate product sheet for the part and find that it lists 250V as the maximum voltage. However, your engineering instincts tell you that, because the part has 10Ω, you better not put 250V onto a 10Ω part that measures 0.250 in. long by 0.090 in. in diameter unless you first get behind a concrete wall. You can find the correct value of the maximum continuous voltage to put onto the 10Ω part by remembering the following: For capacitors, voltage rules; for inductors, current rules; and, for resistors, power rules. The primary parameter that you do not want to exceed for a resistor is the continuous-power rating.

Engineers in the house: Are capacitors the unsung heroes of the electronic components world?