Failure Mechanisms That Cause High Electrical Leakage in MultilayerCeramic Capacitors

The causes of failure mechanisms of multilayer ceramic capacitors that result in zero resistance (shorts) or low resistance (high leakage) behaviour in the capacitors when the capacitors are subjected to low voltages have been studied. It has been found that failures resulted from the electrochemical reaction of electrode materials in the microscopic open pores which pass across a ceramic layer between inner electrodes and are filled with water containing Cl− ions. The mechanism found in this investigation has been applied to enable screening processes to be evolved for manufactured capacitors to eliminate the possibility of failure and hence to improve the reliability of circuits using multilayer ceramic capacitors.