Review of Mechanically Related Failures of Ceramic Capacitors and Capacitor Materials

This paper reviews the brittle fracture behavior of dielectric ceramics such as barium titanate, and describes some of the relationships between defects such as cracks and electrical degradation and failure of multilayer capacitors. Stresses arising from the ferroelectric phase transformation in these dielectric materials are shown to play a part as a driving force for crack growth. In addition, possible contributions to failure from stresses arising from thermal excursions in the capacitor are discussed. Low-voltage failures arising from a short between the electrodes in multilayer capacitors are shown to be related to the growth of cracks in the dielectric. A technique for predicting the onset of these types of failures based upon fracture mechanics techniques is described. Possible effects of the electric field itself in promoting or retarding the growth of cracks are discussed.

[1]  W. B. Carlson,et al.  Numerical simulation of mechanical strain in ceramic bt and pmn-pt multilayers via boundary-value analysis , 1988 .

[2]  K. Yamashita,et al.  Analogy Between Mechanical and Dielectric Strength Distributions for BaTiO3 Ceramics , 1984 .

[3]  R. Cook,et al.  Fracture of ferroelectric ceramics , 1983 .

[4]  J. J. Mecholsky,et al.  Analysis of soldering-induced cracking of BaTiO3 ceramic capacitors , 1983 .

[5]  B. Lawn,et al.  A Critical Evaluation of Indentation Techniques for Measuring Fracture Toughness: II, Strength Method , 1981 .

[6]  S. Freiman,et al.  Grain‐Size Dependence of Fracture Energy in Ceramics: II, A Model for Noncubic Materials , 1981 .

[7]  S. Freiman,et al.  Grain‐Size Dependence of Fracture Energy in Ceramics: I, Experiment , 1981 .

[8]  Ken Sato,et al.  Mechanism of Ceramic Capacitor Leakage Failures due to Low DC Stress , 1980, 18th International Reliability Physics Symposium.

[9]  R. Rice,et al.  Grain‐Size Dependence of Spontaneous Cracking in Ceramics , 1979 .

[10]  D. Hasselman,et al.  Failure prediction of the thermal fatigue resistance of a glass , 1976 .

[11]  G. S. Ansell,et al.  Aging in Tetragonal Ferroelectric Barium Titanate , 1969 .

[12]  D. Hasselman,et al.  Elastic Energy at Fracture and Surface Energy as Design Criteria for Thermal Shock , 1963 .

[13]  S. Freiman.  Environmentally Enhanced Fracture of Ceramics , 1988 .

[14]  S. Freiman,et al.  Fracture Behavior of Ceramics Used in Multilayer Capacitors , 1986 .

[15]  John J. Mecholsky,et al.  Fracture Mechanisms in Lead Zirconate Titanate Ceramics , 1986 .

[16]  K. Okazaki,et al.  Fracture of Piezoelectric Materials , 1983 .

[17]  S. Freiman,et al.  Effect of the Phase Transformation on the Fracture Behavior of BaTiO3 , 1978 .

[18]  B. E. Walker,et al.  Effect of Internal Stress on the Strength of BaTiO3 , 1976 .

[19]  W. Buessem,et al.  Phenomenological Theory of High Permittivity in Fine‐Grained Barium Titanate , 1966 .