A dip-coating process to obtain controlled, uniform coatings on silver shea
thed Bi-2223 wires suitable for the fabrication of multifilamentary tapes i
s reported. Tapes with continuous fully connected MgO resistive barrier lay
ers 1 to 17 mu m thick have been produced and characterized. The correlatio
n between their microstructure, electric transport and magnetic properties
has been analyzed. An effective reduction of the interfilamentary coupling
with a minimum degradation of the tape performance has been obtained for 1
to 3 mu m thick barrier layers.