Capacitors

Owned by Kevin Li
Last updated: 2022-05-27
1 min read

  • What is a capacitor?

  • What are the symbols for polarized and non-polarized capacitors?

  • What is capacitance?

  • What is a dielectric?

  • What is the capacitance-charge equation?

  • What are the differential equations for a capacitor current and voltage?

    • Which one defines the continuity condition for capacitors? What do capacitors resist change in?

  • What is the equation for impedance of a capacitor?

    • What is the impedance of a capacitor at DC steady-state and at infinitely high frequency?

    • How does a capacitor behave when initially excited and at DC steady-state?

  • What is a bypass/decoupling capacitor? What about a bulk capacitor? What is the difference?

  • What sort of signals can capacitors pass through and block? What sort of filter behavior is this?

  • Build a LPF/HPF using a single capacitor.

  • What are some common failure modes of a capacitor?

  • What is a capacitor's self resonant frequency?

  • What is the capacitance DC bias characteristic?

  • What are some important characteristics of capacitors? (voltage rating, tolerance, ESR, leakage current, packaging, etc.)

  • What is capacitor derating?

  • How should I source capacitors?