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Electronics
Buyer (Europe)
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February 2004 - Cover Article - Passive Components Feature
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 Digital
consumer market drives the capacitor revival
Author: Mark Osborne – General
Manager, NIC Components Europe Limited
After a number of false dawns, there
are now encouraging signs of a recovery in the electronics components
industry. Forecasts and recent results for the semiconductor market, which
is strongly linked to the passives market, make for optimistic reading.
Late last year, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) was
estimating that global demand for semiconductors in 2003 would have grown
by an impressive 15.8%.
For the industry as a whole and especially for the passives sector, the
burgeoning digital consumer market is one of the key reasons for the
optimism. After many years of edging forwards, new products are appearing
and others that are already established are making significant technology
leaps. Amongst the newer products are DVD recorders whose prices are now
dropping to a level where they will achieve mass appeal. Various types of
set top boxes (STBs) are appearing on the market to deliver the numerous
TV services, and video games consoles have evolved with the availability
of new systems from Microsoft and Sony. All of these digital consumer
products use large quantities of passive electronic components and in
particular surface mount electrolytic capacitors.
The PC market is also contributing to the feel good factor, with CD-RW
drives and flat panel monitors (TFTs) using significant quantities of
capacitors – each TFT uses between 50 and 60 electrolytics. The level of
passive component demand is further fuelled by the fact that consumer and
business computer users will often buy a complete new PC rather than just
updating their old system. Retailers are supporting this by offering
strong incentives to buy the latest systems rather than individual
peripherals. However, by far the hottest market segment is LCD-TVs. CRT
based flat / widescreen TVs, advanced sound systems such as Dolby 5.1, and
the marketing masterstroke of making all TVs silver rather than black,
have all kept the level of conventional TV sales buoyant. Large plasma
screens appeal to the consumer (and use a lot of capacitors) but their
cost is still prohibitive. LCD-TVs meanwhile have reduced in cost, and the
smaller ‘second TV’ sizes (15inch and 17inch) are now available at prices
that are acceptable to the mass market.
Each LCD-TV can use anywhere between 100 and 200 surface mount
electrolytic devices, this represents a huge potential market, especially
when set against industry analyst production forecasts for LCD-TVs; These
show production having grown from 1.5 million units in 2002 to 3.0 million
in 2003. Looking ahead, the forecasts suggest 7.0 million units for 2004
and 13 million for 2005. Manufacturers and suppliers of passive components
such as NIC Components Europe, whilst encouraged by this situation, are
using their planning and logistics skills to ensure that such a strong and
growing demand from one area of the market does not adversely affect other
key industry sectors and customers.
Two final factors that should be looked at when considering the future of
the electrolytic capacitor market are the migration from leaded to surface
mount devices and lead-free legislation. The production of electrolytic
devices is currently split at approximately 30% surface mount, 70% leaded.
This represents a much slower rate of migration to lead-less devices than
other passive devices such as tantalum capacitors, MLCCs and resistors
that have now reached around 90% surface mount. The large and growing
digital consumer market should however help speed the pace of migration to
surface mount for electrolytics.
Lead-free legislation that comes into force on 1st July 2006 will have an
affect on the design, construction and processing of electrolytic
capacitors and other passive devices. It is likely that the higher
temperature soldering profiles that may be required to make lead-free
processes possible, will necessitate changes such as new end cap plating
materials and, for some devices, changes to the electrolyte material.
- end -
Editor’s Note
Offering a comprehensive range of passive components that includes
capacitors, resistors, inductors, ferrite chip beads, thermistors,
varistors and diodes, NIC Components Europe Ltd. was established in 1998
as the European arm of passive component supplier, NIC Components
Corporation.
URL: www.niccomp.com
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