Howard Winter 13:34 2004-09-25:

>On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 01:04:39 +1200, Russell McMahon wrote:
>
>> Tantalum make excellent decoupling capacitors ****PROVIDED*** that you can 
>> absolutely guarantee that their voltage rating is not exceeded by even the 
>> shortest duration voltage spike. Almost always you can't.

?  Almost always we do, as other parts like semiconductors also react to very short spikes.  What is different?

I have never had any tantalum blow, and on things I repair the problem of dried electrolytics is more frequent than shorted tantalums.  Also, i have replaced a handful of cracked multilayer chip caps, but unly a couple tantalums.  I dont have the same kind of experineces like you seem to have...

/Morgan
--
Morgan Olsson, Kivik, Sweden

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