Advanced characterization of mechanical properties of multilayer ceramic capacitors

Characterization of the mechanical properties of small components is a significant issue. For the multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC), direct loading by conventional facilities is not suitable because of its small size. To date, the standard method used to determine MLCC’s mechanical properties is board flex test; i.e., mounting the capacitor onto a printed circuit board (PCB) and applying bending to the entire system. Failure is defined as cracking or capacitance loss of the MLCC when the mounted PCB is subjected to a specified deflection, and the measurements are usually performed after the test. In this case, characterization of the mechanical properties of MLCCs is qualitative. The purpose of the present study was to quantitatively characterize the mechanical properties of MLCCs. Specifically, the acoustic emission was used to detect cracking of MLCCs during the board flex test. To confirm cracking-induced acoustic emission, telemicroscope was used to perform the in situ observation of cracking. Finite element analyses were also performed to analyze the stress field resulting from the test to compare with the observed cracking path. In addition, nanoindentation was used to explore the mechanical properties of the constituents of MLCCs in the nanoscale. Our work not only allows identification and understanding of the fracture origin, but also provides guidelines in the material design.