High voltage considerations with MLCs

Mica and film capacitors dominate most of the high voltage applications. The combination of high voltage withstanding characteristics and their stability under most electrical and environmental stress conditions have favored these types of capacitors in many designs. Over the years, ceramic capacitors have been developed for high voltage applications that have been proven very reliable in these applications, but the early presentations of this product involved variations on the disk capacitor design. The traditional MLC (multilayer ceramic) capacitor has dominated low voltage applications (< 500 VDC) but continues to encroach into the high voltage applications beyond 500 V through 10 kV. These applications include multiplier circuits, high voltage fly-back power supplies, high-energy pulse circuits, snubber applications, radar, etc