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[January 2006]
Research Investment Pays Off for Yageo
Yageo Corporation (Hsin Tien, Taipei) announced on 23 January 2006 that it had accomplished deployment of BME (Base Metal Electrodes) technology in mass producing NP0 MLCCs (MultiLayer Ceramic Capacitors), which are used in high frequency applications. The company said it was poised to become the top supplier of NP0 MLCCs in the domestic market as it ramped up mass production to meet growing customer demand.
BME technology provides MLCC manufacturers with a cost effective solution for high capacitance production by replacing the exorbitantly priced palladium with copper and nickel. However, the complex process could take upward of a decade of investment and technological concentration to master, particularly in NP0 as opposed to Y5V or X7R series. Yageo acquired BME technology with the acquisition of Philips passive components business in 2000 and has successfully expanded production scale of NP0 MLCC.
Dr C L Hu, who heads up the MLCC R&D Technology Center at Yageo, said that the company has more than 20 years' expertise in MLCC technology and in-depth experience in mass production. His team has been working closely with line engineers in the past two years to introduce new material and new process to address the limitations of silver and palladium in producing the desired high frequency properties. Silver and palladium traditionally used in MLCC production are prone to impair the electrode properties due to redox or migration.
Dr Hu is confident that the new process will raise productivity of NP0 MLCCs by 20% while maintaining efficient high frequency properties. Yageo now has a full range of NP0 MLCC available to its customers and says it is set to capitalise on its proprietary BME NP0 know-how towards developing high capacitance and high voltage MLCC products in order to expand its product offering to customers.
www.yageo.com
ENDS