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When is a uF not a uF ?

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dmills:
Tants in power supply applications were very much a thing back in the day before SMPSUs got everywhere (And forced elco manufacturers to start doing some research), and had a bit of a resurgence with the early PNP output LDOs (That elco research gave us parts with ESR that was too LOW!), but I generally feel that there are usually better options today.

Remember, back in the 80s there were not many good options if you wanted more then a ceramic or film could give you (maybe 1uF so so in a reasonably sized package) and needed decent HF behaviour, the electrolytic caps of the time were generally inductive by the time you hit the AM Radio bands, the tant filled this gap. 

One place I still see them is in PLL loop filters and such where the impedance is high and you want a reasonably stable cap that is low leakage and cannot be microphonic, same for reference supply generators and such, but those are high impedance applications.

aiq25:
I never used tantalum capacitors in designs but I have worked on automotive projects where during Worst Case Circuit Analysis I had to de-rate electrolytic capacitors by 35-45 % (customer requirement) during lifetime calculations. These were for power supply circuits.

splin:

--- Quote from: mzzj on October 04, 2019, 09:01:55 am ---
Tantalums and especially typical "classic" tantalum "drops" are much closer to al-electrolytic than ceramics for "speed"

--- End quote ---

Nah.  Exploding Tants are much faster than exploding Al electrolytics    >:D

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