Temperature Cycling of Tantalum Capacitors

This study focused on the effects of temperature cycling on breakdown voltages of tantalum capacitors. The starting point was a -40 degrees C / +85 degrees C test. The goals of this research were to test the effect of changing the upper test temperature from 85 degrees C to 125 degrees C and compare it to the effect of adding voltage (15V) to test. After the temperature cycling tests, capacitors were tested for their breakdown voltage, so that voltage was slowly increased from 0V to 93V, provided no failure occurred. According to results of this research, a change in the upper temperature in a temperature cycling test does not affect the breakdown voltage of tantalum capacitors, whereas adding voltage to temperature cycling test can in some cases cause more failures. Possible reasons are discussed in the paper.