Gen-One – next generation of Smoltek’s carbon nanofiber capacitors

The Gen-One capa­cit­ors are based on a nov­el approach in con­vert­ing a car­bon nan­ofiber forest into a high capa­cit­ance dens­ity capa­cit­or. This approach util­izes the valu­able foot­print area of the capa­cit­or more effi­ciently while keep­ing the para­sit­ic induct­ance and res­ist­ance at a min­im­um. This, com­bined with the expec­ted increase in the length of the car­bon nan­ofibers will be a leap for­ward com­pared to the Gen-Zero CNF-MIM capa­cit­ors.

The Gen-Zero capa­cit­ors was developed togeth­er with Yageo, one of the biggest capa­cit­ors man­u­fac­tur­ers in the world. The capa­cit­or tech­no­logy devel­op­ment col­lab­or­a­tion between Smol­tek Semi and Yageo Group will con­tin­ue, although Yageo has paused the dis­cus­sions on an exclus­ive license and ser­vice agree­ment, and they will assist in the test­ing and eval­u­ation of our upcom­ing Gen-One capa­cit­ors that are under development.

Smol­tek Semi is still work­ing very closely with Yageo to devel­op the CNF-MIM tech­no­logy. And the next gen­er­a­tion, Gen-One is expec­ted to enable capa­cit­ance val­ues on par with the top capa­cit­ors on the market.

Far­z­an Ghavanini, CTO

High capa­cit­ance in a small area – and the import­ance of volu­met­ric capa­cit­ance dens­ity
Smol­tek’s car­bon nan­ofiber-based capa­cit­or tech­no­logy, CNF-MIM, cre­ates high capa­cit­ance val­ues by grow­ing extremely thin and tall car­bon nan­ofibers on top of a sil­ic­on sub­strate. With this tech­no­logy, a very high capa­cit­ance is cre­ated in a very small area. This is fun­da­ment­al and deman­ded from the capa­cit­or man­u­fac­tur­ers and their cus­tom­ers worldwide.

With the new tech­no­logy gen­er­a­tion, Smol­tek can cre­ate a volu­met­ric capa­cit­ance dens­ity of up to 120 nan­o­farads per square mil­li­meter, and per micro­met­er of car­bon nan­ofiber. This is com­par­able to the top capa­cit­ors on the mar­ket. How­ever, the capa­cit­ance val­ues in the Gen-Zero capa­cit­ors were today lower than the com­pet­it­ors. This is because we have not yet optim­ized the length of the car­bon nan­ofibers, which in Gen-Zero were only a few micro­met­ers long. In the next gen­er­a­tion, Gen-One, the ambi­tion is to grow car­bon nan­ofibers that are up to 10 micro­met­ers long, which is expec­ted to enable capa­cit­ance val­ues on par with the competition.

Far­z­an Ghavanini