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In 1982, NIC Components
Corp. was licensed by Nippon Industries
Co., Ltd.
[  ™],
of Japan for
the North American sales of its passive components. Nippon
Industries was founded in 1975 by Yoshiharu Dangi and Gichu Sato
with an initial investment into a small manufacturer of aluminum
electrolytic capacitors. In the ensuing years, they continued to
invest in small and medium-sized Asian makers of passive
components. Nippon’s philosophy was to provide an export
market to those independent factories in return for a long-term
allocation. To further enhance this unique fab-less model, Nippon
provided its suppliers with financing, engineering and access to
high quality raw material suppliers. All of Nippon’s products
were for export, and many of its customers initially were
importers and distributors in both Europe and North America.
In 1982, Richard Schuster and several associates founded NIC Components Corp.
NIC, headquartered in Farmingdale, New York, set up sales and
marketing in the United States and Canada and procured mot of
its product from Nippon Industries. Some of its early
distributors included Future
Electronics,
Belford,
Bell (now Arrow) and Brevan. In 1989, NIC opened its second
sales and warehouse facility in San Jose, California. While the
core business remained in aluminum electrolytics, new fabs
manufacturing tantalum, film and ceramic capacitors were
recruited to round out the package of passive components. NIC
also ventured into the resistive and magnetic component markets
with Nippon’s new fab liaisons. In 1997, NIC Eurotech Ltd. was
established in the United Kingdom as a wholly-owned subsidiary,
and in 1999, NIC
Components Asia PTE Ltd. was established in association with
Nippon Industries and local management in Singapore. Today, NIC
Components is approaching 200 million dollars in sales and has
several thousand active customers worldwide, including top tier
CEMs and OEMs. NIC’s major
distributors
North American Warehousing:
Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors
NIC’s original product line encompassed through-hole construction in axial,
radial and snap mount configurations. Most of the product was produced in Japan, but due to labor costs and exchange rate
considerations, some production was moved to Taiwan and China, in the late 80’s. Raw material and engineering were still
predominantly Japanese in order to assure quality and uniformity.
 In the mid-80’s, NIC introduced surface mount cylindrical can aluminum
electrolytics to the U.S. market. At first the going was slow, with designs coming primarily from the larger, more progressive
OEMs. Surface mount was still relatively new and the larger size aluminums presented some challenges for the pick-and-place
equipment. Sizes were not yet standardized, and both CV and characteristics were somewhat limited. Still, NIC had resolved
that this was the technology of the future, as was evident from the rapid evolution of though-hole to surface mount in other
passive components such as ceramic and tantalum capacitors and discrete resistors. Using both through-hole and surface mount
components on the same PCB must utilize two soldering processes, which is very costly. Aluminum electrolytics in surface mount
packages have only taken off in the last few years, and now they are truly coming into popularity. Expansive ranges of size,
capacitance, voltage and special characteristics such as low ESR, extended temperature and low leakage current offer a
multitude of design options.
Due to NIC’s early entry into this technology and the fact that they have the most
extensive line of surface mount types, they have established a very strong market position. They are now shipping over 40
million pieces per month, and this number is growing at a frenetic pace.
NIC
Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors Technology and Trends
NIC’s Aluminum Electrolytic
Capacitor (E-Cap) offering currently covers:
17 Product Series -Types of
surface mount (SMT) parts
29 Product Series -Types of
radial leaded parts
4 Product Series -Types of
large
can (snap-in) parts
2 Product Series -Types of
screw terminal parts
Aluminum E-Cap Manufacturing:
Temperature Ratings:
-40° to +85°C: General purpose
(lowest cost)
-55° to +105°C: Wide
temperature (with 4X longer life than +85°C rated)
-55° to +125°C: Extended
temperature (with 4X longer life than +105°C rated)
Capacitance Value and Voltage
Ranges:
Surface mount (SMT): 0.1 to 6,800
µF; 2.0 to 450 VDC
Radial leaded: 0.1 to 15,000 µF; 6.3 to 450 VDC
Large can (snap-in) leaded: 56 to 68,000 µF: 10 to 450 VDC
Large can Screw terminal: 150uF to 1.0F: 16 to 500 VDC
Specialty
Types:
Low
impedance-low ESR styles:
6 Product
series-types surface mount (SMT) and
8 product series radial leaded for high frequency and high current
switching power supplies; DC-DC converters and voltage regulator
module applications. NIC has recently expanded the range of its
NSP series specialty polymer electrolyte ( Solid
Aluminum
) type
in SMT package.
Low
Leakage Current Styles:
1 Product Series-Types
surface mount (SMT) and 3-series radial leaded for leakage
current sensitive applications (sensors and battery powered
circuits).
Bi-Polar
Styles:
1
Product Series-Types
surface mount (SMT), 3-series radial leaded for applications where circuit voltage bias is unknown or
may reverse.
Technology
Trends Alternates to Chip Tantalum
In today's market, alternatives to tantalum chip
technology, such as NIC SMT aluminum electrolytic capacitors,
are becoming increasingly attractive to circuit designers and
PCB manufacturers. Those users adopting easier-to-obtain SMT
aluminum electrolytic capacitors, in place of long lead time
tantalum chips, have also found a number of performance and
cost-related advantages. Aluminum electrolytic styles have
featured improved immunity to unforeseen reserve voltage and
over voltage transient conditions, as compared to tantalum
electrolytic styles. Another nice advantage of aluminum
electrolytic capacitors (SMT and leaded) is their relative lower
cost, when compared to tantalum solutions.
Aluminum
Electrolytic Capacitor Road Map
Majority of development efforts have continued to focus on:
SMT format development
Expanded range of values (introduction of larger case sizes and improved foils)
Lower impedance-Reduced ESR styles for next generation lower
voltage-higher current circuits
Improvement in longer life styles
Environmental impact issues (alternatives to PVC insulation sleeves of leaded styles)
Expectations
SMT style usage should exceed leaded styles within the next two years
Further reduced pricing of SMT styles is expected as other producers (outside Japan) enter the market
Axial leaded styles will continue to fall from usage, being replaced by SMT and radial leaded styles
NIC Components is well positioned in the North American
market for passive electronic components. By maintaining a
knowledgeable engineering group, an aggressive sales team, and a
dedicated source for passive component, NIC Component will
continue to grow rapidly in tier one accounts in telecom,
computer and automotive end-use market segments.
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