Suntan Blog

The reason for the continued use of silver mica capacitors is the fact that they can offer very high levels of performance, better in many areas than any other type of capacitor. However in many applications, other more modern technologies provide levels of performance that meets the needs for that particular requirement.

The particular properties of the silver mica capacitor are summarised below.

• High accuracy: Silver mica capacitors can be obtained with tolerance figures of +/- 1%. This is much better than virtually every other form of capacitor available today.
• Temperature co-efficient: The temperature co-efficient of silver mica capacitors is much better than most other types of capacitor. The temperature coefficient is positive and is normally in the region 35 to 75 ppm / C, with +50 ppm / C being an average value
• Value range: Values for silver mica capacitors are normally in the range between a few picofarads up to two or possibly three thousand picofarads.
• Low capacitance variation with voltage: Silver mica capacitors exhibit very little voltage dependence.
• High Q: Silver mica capacitors have very high levels of Q and conversely small power factors. These are both almost independent of frequency.

Although silver mica capacitors have a high tolerance and low temperature co-efficient they are known to jump in value on occasions.