How to Characterize the Reliability of Ceramic Capacitors with Base-Metal Electrodes (BMEs)

The reliability of an MLCC device is the product of a time-dependent part and a time-independent part: 1) Time-dependent part is a statistical distribution; 2) Time-independent part is the reliability at t=0, the initial reliability. Initial reliability depends only on how a BME MLCC is designed and processed. Similar to the way the minimum dielectric thickness ensured the long-term reliability of a PME MLCC, the initial reliability also ensures the long term-reliability of a BME MLCC. This presentation shows new discoveries regarding commonalities and differences between PME and BME capacitor technologies.