Failure Models for Low-Voltage BME Ceramic Capacitors with Defects

Reliability of base metal electrode (BME) multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) that until recently were used mostly in commercial applications, have been improved substantially by using new materials and processes. Currently, the inception of intrinsic wear-out failures in high quality capacitors became much greater than the mission duration in most high-reliability applications. However, in capacitors with defects degradation processes might accelerate substantially and cause infant mortality failures. In this work, a physical model that relates the presence of defects to reduction of breakdown voltages and decreasing times to failure has been suggested. The effect of the defect size has been analyzed using a thermal runaway model of failures. Adequacy of highly accelerated life testing (HALT) to predict reliability at normal operating conditions and limitations of voltage acceleration are considered. The applicability of the model to BME capacitors with cracks is discussed and validated experimentally.