IN Brief:
- TDK’s new CN-series MLCC provides 10µF capacitance at 100V in a 3225 X7R package.
- An optimised resin-electrode structure combines soft termination with terminal resistance comparable to standard products.
- TDK says doubled capacitance can reduce component count in suitable 48V power-line applications.
TDK has expanded its CN series of soft-termination multilayer ceramic capacitors with a 10µF, 100V X7R device in the 3225 package, doubling the rated capacitance available from its conventional equivalent while retaining a resin-electrode structure intended to absorb mechanical stress.
The capacitor measures 3.2 × 2.5 × 2.5mm and is aimed at smoothing and decoupling on 48V power lines. TDK identifies AI servers, humanoid robots, xEVs, and industrial equipment among the target applications, where higher power levels are increasing demand for capacitance and voltage headroom without a corresponding increase in PCB area.
Soft termination addresses a familiar MLCC reliability problem. Ceramic capacitor bodies are brittle, and board flex, vibration, thermal expansion, or mechanical strain can create cracks around conventional terminations. Adding a conductive resin layer between the ceramic termination and outer electrode allows part of that stress to be absorbed before it reaches the ceramic body.
The trade-off is electrical. Resin can increase equivalent series resistance, which is undesirable where capacitors carry significant ripple current or form part of a low-impedance power-distribution network. TDK says it has optimised the material selection and resin-electrode structure so the CN series provides terminal resistance comparable with its standard-terminal products.
The 10µF rating is twice that of TDK’s conventional capacitor in the same 3225 size. The company says this can allow the number of MLCCs used in a mounting area to be halved, reducing component count and freeing PCB space. That comparison remains application dependent because designers still have to account for effective capacitance under bias, impedance targets, ripple current, tolerance, temperature, and any redundancy requirements.
Those factors are particularly important with X7R dielectric. The nominal capacitance measured under datasheet conditions is not necessarily the value available once substantial DC voltage is applied, and high-capacitance ceramic devices can lose a meaningful proportion of their effective capacitance under bias. A 48V rail therefore has to be evaluated using the device’s actual bias characteristics rather than its headline 10µF rating alone.
The 100V rating provides useful operating margin for nominal 48V architectures. Raising distribution voltage reduces current for the same delivered power, cutting resistive losses and potentially reducing conductor size. That is increasingly attractive in servers and other high-power electronics where the current demanded by processors, accelerators, motors, and local converters continues to rise.
The higher bus voltage does not remove the board-level power problem. Intermediate converters and point-of-load regulators still have to supply much lower voltages to processors, memory, sensors, and control electronics, leaving designers to manage transient current, conducted noise, conversion loss, and target impedance across a wide frequency range.
Capacitor density becomes one part of that exercise. If a higher-capacitance MLCC genuinely replaces two devices without compromising effective capacitance or ripple performance, it can release board area around converters and reduce placement count. In densely populated power stages, that can be more useful than simply increasing nominal capacitance without changing package size.
Mechanical reliability provides another reason to combine the two developments. High component density can increase the number of soldered ceramic devices exposed to board flex and assembly stress, while automotive and industrial equipment may also face sustained vibration and thermal cycling. The automotive version of the new device is qualified to AEC-Q200 requirements.
TDK is offering automotive and commercial variants, with mass production beginning in September 2026. The new device does not eliminate the need to parallel capacitors across every 48V power network, but it gives designers a higher-capacitance 100V option within an established footprint while retaining the mechanical compliance of a soft-termination construction.
