CAPACITORS - OPERATING PRINCIPLES, CURRENT MARKET AND TECHNICAL TRENDS

The worldwide market for capacitors was approximately US$ 12.3 billion in 1993, of which production within Japan accounted for approximately 50% and the combined domestic and overseas production of Japanese man ufacturers accounted for approximately 70%, The worldwide capacitor ma rket continues to grow by approximately 20% per year as the demand for ICs and LSIs is growing. In conjunction with this special issue on ca pacitors, this paper presents a corporate perspective on current trend s in the capacitor market: capacitor principles; capacitor materials; capacitor types and major characteristics; recent technical trends in capacitors and the future market outlook, and technical problems in th e hope of facilitating the understanding of ideas and concepts present ed in other papers in this issue.