YAGEO Group, including the former KEMET ceramic business, has expanded its automotive‑grade X7R multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) portfolio with new high‑capacitance values.
The MLCC ceramic capacitors extension targets demanding automotive and industrial electronics where compact, temperature‑stable decoupling and filtering components are critical for reliability and safety. The YAGEO broadened range gives design engineers more options to meet EMC, miniaturization and lifetime requirements without resorting to larger package sizes or alternative technologies.
Key features and benefits
The extended X7R automotive MLCC family is designed as a general‑purpose workhorse for decoupling, bypassing and filtering in automotive and industrial control electronics. It combines a wide capacitance range with automotive qualification and robust mechanical construction according to the manufacturer documentation.
Key characteristics include:
- Capacitance range from 1000 pF up to 6.8 μF, covering small signal decoupling through to bulk bypass roles in dense automotive PCBs.
- Availability in both standard and flexible termination constructions to reduce the risk of board‑flex or thermal‑mechanical cracking.
- Automotive qualification to AEC‑Q200, suitable for use in control units, power electronics and other safety‑relevant modules.
- RoHS and REACH compliant materials, easing environmental compliance in global platforms.
- DC voltage ratings from 6.3 V up to 3000 V, enabling use from low‑voltage logic rails up to high‑voltage power conversion and snubber networks according to the manufacturer product brief.
- Operating temperature range up to 125 °C for X7R and up to 150 °C for certain related dielectric options in the wider automotive MLCC portfolio, supporting under‑hood and drivetrain installations.
For purchasing teams, the combination of AEC‑Q200 qualification, extended capacitance range and broad voltage coverage simplifies AVL management because a single family can be specified over many projects.
Typical applications
The X7R automotive MLCC extensions are aimed at a wide set of power and signal‑conditioning tasks in vehicles and industrial systems. The series is particularly useful where stable capacitance over temperature and long‑term reliability are more important than ultra‑tight capacitance tolerance.
Representative application areas include:
- Decoupling and bypassing on power rails in ECUs, inverters, DC‑DC converters and control boards, where MLCCs must handle continuous ripple current and voltage transients.
- Filtering in power and signal lines to support EMC compliance, suppress conducted noise and maintain audio/video quality in infotainment or driver‑assistance systems.
- Resonant power stages and timing circuits when paired with C0G or U2J capacitors from the same automotive portfolio for frequency‑stable positions, while X7R devices handle bulk energy storage.
- Under‑hood power electronics and EV/HEV subsystems that require components tolerant to high ambient temperature, vibration and thermal cycling.
- High‑voltage snubber and converter applications, where suitable high‑voltage X7R MLCC types can be used to shape switching edges and limit overvoltage stress, according to the manufacturer.
- EMI suppression and stable filtering functions in communication, connectivity and telematics modules to protect sensitive RF and digital circuits.
For design engineers, the extended capacitance options help avoid paralleling large numbers of smaller capacitors, saving PCB space, placement costs and potential yield issues.
Technical highlights
The devices use X7R dielectric, which is classified as a “temperature stable” Class II ceramic with controlled capacitance change over the full automotive temperature range.
Key technical points:
- X7R dielectric supports a maximum operating temperature of 125 °C and maintains capacitance within ±15% from −55 °C to +125 °C, which simplifies worst‑case design calculations for timing constants and decoupling margins.
- The MLCCs exhibit a predictable change in capacitance with time (aging) and with applied DC bias, which must be considered in derating but allows consistent modeling in simulations.
- Minimal capacitance change versus ambient temperature in normal operation helps maintain stable impedance over the frequency range relevant to power rail decoupling.
- Package sizes span the common EIA footprint range from 0402 up to 2225 within the broader automotive MLCC portfolio, enabling both fine‑pitch logic decoupling and higher‑energy positions in power stages according to the product documentation.
- The family includes constructions with enhanced mechanical robustness using flexible terminations, which mitigate board‑flex and thermal‑shock induced cracking—one of the main field failure modes for large MLCCs.
When comparing with C0G/U2J options, engineers can treat X7R as the choice for higher capacitance density where moderate variation in capacitance over temperature and voltage is acceptable.
Source
This article is based on an official YAGEO Group press release and associated automotive MLCC product documentation describing the extension of the KEMET X7R automotive MLCC portfolio with new high‑capacitance values.