Capacitor New Position in the Market

The development of science and technology has made some technologies and concepts no longer limited to traditional fields. The development of new materials and emerging markets has promoted the extension of traditional component technologies to emerging fields. For example, capacitors have found new positions in many fields.

    Capacitive touch screen

    Just like the birth of Windows, which changed the way of human-computer interaction, screen touch technology also pushed human-computer interaction to a new era. After years of development, capacitive touch screen technology has begun to show distinctive advantages.

    The first market to introduce touch technology is the industrial control field. Its purpose is to integrate the complicated and large-scale mechanical equipment control panel into a single-window, multi-page screen. At that time, medium and large-size resistive screens were used. However, the shortcomings of the resistive screen, such as insufficient life and durability, cannot meet the needs of the industrial control field. Until around 2003, due to the reduced manufacturing cost of resistive screens, small sizes began to be used in portable products such as PDAs and GPS, and touch technology officially entered the consumer market. However, as far as the consumer electronics market is concerned, there are many unsatisfactory places for resistive screens. In 2006, the iPhone with a small-size capacitive touch screen came out. Apple's excellent marketing capabilities, coupled with the high-quality optical characteristics and multi-touch functions of the capacitive touch screen, immediately set off a wave and became the most eye-catching touch technology in recent years.

    The signal detected by the capacitive touch technology comes from a small change caused by the touch. According to different working principles, it can be roughly divided into surface capacitive touch technology (SCT) and projected capacitive touch technology (PCT). The former is commonly used in large-scale outdoor applications, such as public information platforms and public service platforms (POS machines) and other products. Small-scale consumer electronic devices such as iPhones use PCT technology extensively.

    Compared with the current market share of resistive touch (an extension of resistive technology) technology, capacitive touch technology has many advantages: up to 97% penetration rate and more realistic color presentation; the realization of touch functions only Light touch does not even have to actually touch the screen; longer service life, the touch life of the capacitive screen is about 200 million times, two hundred times that of the four-wire resistive screen (1 million times), and the five-wire resistive screen (40 million times) ) Five times.

    According to the iSuppli survey, it is estimated that the global touch panel output value in 2012 will rise from 2.4 billion US dollars in 2006 to 4.4 billion US dollars. At present, more than 100 manufacturers and 300 assembly companies and auxiliary machinery suppliers have gathered in this field. Among them, the capacitive touch panel, driven by the iPhone, will quickly replace other technologies and become the mainstream of the market.

    Super capacitor

    The so-called super capacitor can be understood as an electrolytic capacitor with a large capacity. However, the purpose of this capacitor is very different from the past, it is used as a battery. The capacitance of a super capacitor is usually above 1F. Compared with the electrolytic capacitors of hundreds or thousands of uF that are commonly used in circuits, the capacity is 1000 times larger, and the operating voltage ranges from 1.5V to 160V or even higher. As the capacitance and voltage increase, its volume also increases. Early supercapacitors with a capacitance value of about tens of farads were large and were mainly used in large power equipment. Small-volume supercapacitors with low-voltage operating capabilities are often used as short-term backup power supplies in consumer electronic devices (comparatively high-end UPS). With the recent technological advancement, when the working voltage of the super capacitor is increased to 25Vdc, the volume is less than doubled, which also means that the device has more excellent capacitance properties. However, the application of supercapacitors has not been smooth sailing. As early as 2006, a battery-based bus using supercapacitors was put into trial operation in Shanghai, but the failure rate was extremely high. Only two of the seven vehicles remained normal in one week. Work, which makes the pace of supercapacitors truly entering the automotive market forced to slow down.

    After recent years of development, the volume of supercapacitors is getting smaller and smaller, the quality is more and more stable, and the performance is more and more like batteries.

    At present, supercapacitors above 5F have begun to be used in many portable and handheld products, and some have even replaced batteries. The automotive field is developing rapidly. Due to the short charging time and environmental protection of electrolyte materials, many manufacturers have high hopes for supercapacitors as the source of electric energy for hybrid vehicles. They hope that supercapacitors will be transferred from concept cars to general vehicles as soon as possible.

    Recent data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology laboratory show that in the next few years, the energy storage capacity of supercapacitors will have a qualitative leap. The current discharge speed of super capacitor products is 10 times that of traditional batteries, while the energy storage capacity is only 50% of the latter under the same volume. This unfavorable situation will be reversed in the next few years. By then, super capacitors will truly enter a broader application field.