Numerical analysis of dielectric ceramic and void containing Ni electrode layers of multilayer ceramic capacitors

Abstract

In this article, we performed a numerical analysis of dielectric ceramic and Ni electrode layers with voids in a multilayer ceramic capacitor using the finite element method. To numerically analyze a multilayer ceramic capacitor composed of several hundred ceramic and Ni layers, we defined a unit cell, and equivalent material properties from the ceramic and Ni layers were calculated by the homogenization method. We predicted the deformation of the overall multilayer ceramic capacitor from that of a unit cell with equivalent material properties. Voids in the Ni layer, produced during the manufacturing process, were taken into consideration. Because both ceramic and Ni layers are viscoelastic and are in contact with each other, viscoelastic and contact analyses were carried out using the commercial software ANSYS. Dynamic mechanical analysis was used to determine the viscoelastic material properties of the ceramic and Ni layers. We compared the elastic results with the viscoelastic results to determine the viscoelastic characteristics of a multilayer ceramic capacitor. The surface roughness of a multilayer ceramic capacitor was measured by confocal microscopy to verify the reliability of the numerical analysis. The experimental results showed reasonable agreement with the model-based results.