Silicon Alternatives to the Ubiquitous MLCC [Expert View]

A longside resistors and inductors, capacitors are one of the fundamental electronic components. In fact, an argument could be made that they are more versatile than their other passive counterparts, essential to providing everything from energy storage and filtering to smoothing and RF tuning. About one trillion capacitors are produced every year, with around 80% of that number being made up of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs)
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. Deployed across the entire power delivery network, the ubiquity of these miniature devices is reflected in the fact that there are anywhere between 400 to over 1000 of them in the latest smartphones
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and as many as 5000 in a modern vehicle
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. And the demand for MLCCs continues to grow rapidly. According to the latest report from research firm Research and Markets, for example, the global MLCC market is expected to see a compound annual growth rate of 13.8%, increasing from USD 14.0 billion in 2022 to USD 26.6 billion by 2027.