Ceramic Capacitor Temperature Ratings

This tutorial explains how ceramic capacitor type designations such as x7r and y5v imply nothing about voltage coefficients.

Ceramic capacitor temperature ratings.

The reality of modern small form factor ceramic capacitors is a good reminder to always read the data sheet. Nominal capacitance c the nominal value of the capacitance c of a capacitor is the most important of all capacitor. The third letter gives the maximum tolerance from that in ppm k. Mlccs are used instead if capacitance values allow.

Ceramic capacitors which are usually tiny pancakes with two pins typically list the tolerance value as one letter immediately after the three digit capacitance value. All ratings are from 25 to 85 c. A ceramic capacitor is a fixed value capacitor where the ceramic material acts as the dielectric. 5 as in x5r corresponds to 85 c and 7 as in x7r corresponds to 125 c.

These capacitor characteristics can always be found in the data sheets that the capacitor manufacturer provides to us so here are just a few of the more important ones. The capacitor as with any other electronic component comes defined by a series of characteristics. The letter x as in x7r x5r corresponds to 55 c. The second character indicates the maximum temperature.

The first character indicates the lowest temperature that the capacitor can handle. Engineers must check the data to know really know how a specific capacitor will perform under voltage. This letter represents the tolerance of the capacitor meaning how close the actual value of the capacitor can be expected to be to the indicated value of the capacitor. Ceramic disc capacitors have a capacitance value of 10pf to 100μf with a wide variety of voltage ratings between 16 volts to 15 kv and more.

The theoretical range is from 45 c to 200 c.