Single layer ceramic capacitors (SLC) are passive components that use ceramic materials as their insulator. They are similar in construction to ceramic multilayer capacitors but have only one layer of insulating material instead of multiple layers.

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What are single layer ceramic capacitors used for?

Single layer ceramic capacitors are suitable for high-frequency decoupling in switching circuits due to their inductance and series resistance.

Ceramic multilayer capacitors are used when sufficient levels of capacitance need to be obtained within a single capacitor. Consequently, single layer capacitors are more limited when used as stand-alone capacitors. Multiple ceramic single layer capacitors can be used to increase the level of capacitance if this is required in a particular application.

Single layer ceramic capacitors are often used for temperature compensation, coupling and decoupling, a resonant circuit, bypassing, AC power supply and filter applications.

Types of single layer ceramic capacitors

SLC's can be divided into main types, Class 1 and Class 2:

Class 1 SLCs are known to be highly stable, accurate and have low losses. They offer the most reliable voltage, temperature, and frequency. Class 1 capacitors are commonly found in resonant circuits such as radios.

Class 2 SLCs have a highly permissive dielectric which gives better volumetric efficiency. However, they have lower accuracy and stability than Class 1 capacitors and are better suited to bypass, coupling and decoupling applications, or for frequency discriminating circuits.

Ceramic single layer capacitors can vary in capacitance, voltage, packaging, tolerance and mounting type, for example, from 50 V up to 40 kV, the capacitance of 1 pF to 470 nF, and with radial, axial, screw and surface mountings.