According to the Nikkei Asia, Murata recently stated that it hopes to use MLCC's miniaturization technology to maintain its lead over Chinese and South Korean competitors.
Tsuneo Murata, the president of Murata Manufacturing, said when showing the company's latest MLCC products that in view of the current chip mounting technology, the size of MLCCs should be getting smaller and smaller.
In smart phones, MLCC is used to store and discharge electricity to maintain a stable current in the circuit. Murata's new product measures only 0.25 mm x 0.125 mm, which is the smallest MLCC in the world. Its capacity is only one-fifth of similar products, but its power storage capacity is 10 times that of similar products. The usage of MLCC is about 800 in a high-end mobile phone, and in 5G mobile phones, this figure is even higher by 20%.
With cutting-edge miniaturization technology, Japanese MLCC manufacturers have a solid competitive advantage over foreign competitors. Chinese and Korean competitors are currently unable to replicate Japanese MLCC products. In addition, many Japanese electronic component manufacturers have developed their own materials and production equipment to protect their core technology from copying by competitors.
In the MLCC industry, Chinese and Korean competitors will narrow the gap with Japanese manufacturers in the next ten years, but they will not be able to easily catch up because Japanese manufacturers are constantly upgrading their technology.
