KOREA: Developing capacitor materials to stay competitive

A wide variety of advanced capacitors are being developed and launched today because of the great interest in energy efficiency. Electronic product manufacturers are demanding high-speed processing, reduced energy consumption, small size, and high reliability. As a result, the market for conducted high polymer capacitors and chip-type aluminum electrolytic capacitors, which feature small size and high capacity, are growing continuously.



In the past, Korea’s capacitor industry faced a lot of challenges because of the tight competition from Japan’s advanced technologies and China’s low-priced products. According to Jeong-gook Seo, a researcher at Samwha Electric Co. Ltd, “The current goal of local manufacturers is to develop products of high value and reduced cost. Localizing conducted high polymer capacitors, which are made mainly of Japanese materials, will help improve Korea’s technical competitiveness.”



GOING HIGH IN CAPACITY

With the advancements in traditional electrolytic, electrochemical capacitors, also called high-capacity capacitors, and electric double-layer capacitors (EDLC) have become popular alternatives to secondary batteries.



“High-capacity capacitors have several hundreds to thousands farad. These capacitors have excellent instantaneous power and their energy density is higher than that of regular electrolytic capacitors,” said Dr. Jong-huee Kim of the Advanced Energy Materials Research Department, Korea Institute of Energy Research.



The high-capacity capacitor market is quite extensive, which includes fuel cell bus to propel the next-generation hybrid-electric vehicles. However, it may take a long time for high-capacity capacitors to replace batteries because of their steep price. More research on materials is required for the commercialization of these capacitors.



According to Kim, “Most of Korea’s manufacturers use the materials supplied by Japan. At this point, it is important to localize and develop new materials where carbon is combined with high polymer.”

PRODUCT OFFERINGS

Samwha Electric Co. Ltd, a local capacitor manufacturer, is currently developing chip-type high-capacity electrolytic capacitors and lead-type electrolytic capacitors that feature high temperature characteristics and long life expectancy. The company is focusing on motherboard, power and industrial markets.



Meanwhile, several capacitor manufacturers such as NessCap and Korchip Corp. are developing low-capacity EDLCs of 1 to 100 farad (F). Smart Thinkers Inc., on the other hand, is focusing on low-capacity EDLCs of less than 1F and is supplying them for the backup of mobile phone RCTs.