The transition from thru-hole manufacturing to surface mount technology has made one thing crystal clear: surface mount components and PC boards are easily damaged by the soldering and assembly process.

Previous to the ceramic output filter capacitor, a high energy discharge capacitor has been manufactured for the past 20 years. The application was military and replaced a reconstituted mica that was 20 times its volume and mass.

High speed switch mode power supplies place high demands on the capacitors used in the input or output filters of Resonant DC-DC or Pulse Modulated DC-DC converters.

A multilayer ceramic (MLC) capacitor is a monolithic block of ceramic containing two sets of offset, interleaved planar electrodes that extend to two opposite surfaces of the ceramic dielectric.