Multilayer Capacitor vs. Multilayer Inductor

This page explores the differences between multilayer capacitors and multilayer inductors, covering their basics and construction.

Multilayer Capacitor

Multilayer chip capacitors often come in the same package styles as chip resistors. Typical values range from 0.5 pF up to microfarads, with some specialized products reaching tenths of picofarads. Parallel plate capacitors generally offer lower maximum capacitance for a given size.

multilayer capacitor

Multilayer chip capacitors are essentially a sandwich of numerous thin electrodes separated by dielectric layers. The end terminations connect to alternating electrodes, as illustrated in Figure 1.

A diverse selection of dielectric materials, such as NPO, X7R, or Z5U, is available for these capacitors. Figure 1 showcases parallel plate capacitors, multilayer capacitors, and their equivalent circuits.

Multilayer Inductor

Inductors are commonly printed on PCBs or constructed as surface mount chips.

multilayer inductor

The maximum current of wire inductors is dictated by the wire’s or trace’s ampacity. Conversely, inductors utilizing ferrite or iron cores will experience core saturation if excessive current is applied. Surface mount inductors are available in sizes comparable to chip resistors and capacitors.

Multilayer chip inductors typically use 0805 and smaller packages, with a maximum inductance of 470 nH. While the self-resonance frequency of these inductors is high due to the limited number of turns, the dielectric loading of the sandwich structure results in a lower resonance compared to an equivalent wound inductor. Figure 2 illustrates wound inductors, multilayer inductors, and their corresponding equivalent circuits.