page_title: Ceramic capacitor
section_title: MLCC case sizes
hierarchical_section_title: Ceramic capacitor / Construction and styles / Multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCC) / MLCC case sizes
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: MLCC-Abmessungen
context_page_description: A ceramic capacitor is a fixed-value capacitor where the ceramic material acts as the dielectric. It is constructed of two or more alternating layers of ceramic and a metal layer acting as the electrodes. The composition of the ceramic material defines the electrical behavior and therefore applications. Ceramic capacitors are divided into two application classes:
  Class 1 ceramic capacitors offer high stability and low losses for resonant circuit applications.
  Class 2 ceramic capacitors offer high volumetric efficiency for buffer, by-pass, and coupling applications.
  Ceramic capacitors, especially multilayer ceramic capacitors, are the most produced and used capacitors in electronic equipment that incorporate approximately one trillion pieces per year.
  Ceramic capacitors of special shapes and styles are used as capacitors for RFI/EMI suppression, as feed-through capacitors and in larger dimensions as power capacitors for transmitters.
context_section_description: MLCCs don't have leads, and as a result they are usually smaller than their counterparts with leads. They don't require through-hole access in a PCB to mount and are designed to be handled by machines rather than by humans. As a result, surface-mount components like MLCCs are typically cheaper.
  MLCCs are manufactured in standardized shapes and sizes for comparable handling. Because the early standardization was dominated by American EIA standards the dimensions of the MLCC chips were standardized by EIA in units of inches. A rectangular chip with the dimensions of 0.06 inch length and 0.03 inch width is coded as "0603". This code is international and in common use. JEDEC (IEC/EN), devised a second, metric code. The EIA code and the metric equivalent of the common sizes of multilayer ceramic chip capacitors, and the dimensions in mm are shown in the following table. Missing from the table is the measure of the height "H". This is generally not listed, because the height of MLCC chips depends on the number of layers and thus on the capacitance. Normally, however, the height H does not exceed the width W.
caption: Dimensions L×W×H of the multi-layer ceramic chip capacitors
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