As engineers embed receivers for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), like GPS and Galileo, into systems ranging from autonomous vehicles to precision agriculture, the RF environment is becoming more crowded, and it’s more difficult to maintain signal integrity.  

As discussed in the first post in our safety capacitor series, safety capacitors are designed to help safeguard users and equipment from electrical hazards, even in the event of failure. When selecting a safety capacitor for your application, you typically have two choices in dielectric material – ceramic and film. To select the right technology for your application, it is important to both understand your requirements and the differences between what each material has to offer.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing is becoming increasingly reliant on robotics and automation. From precise dispensing and high-speed sorting to kit assembly and sterile packaging, today’s automation tasks demand advanced motor and drive technology to keep pace with complex, high-reliability environments. 

Unplanned power interruptions and shutdowns pose serious risks for industrial facilities. Even a few seconds of lost control can result in equipment damage, safety hazards, or production losses. Fail-safe systems are among the key risk mitigation techniques used in high-stakes industrial environments.  

In our prior blog, What Are Safety Capacitors, we provided an overview safety capacitor functionality and how these passive components play a crucial role filtering EMI in a circuit. Now, we will dive deeper into the functions of safety capacitors and how to select the capacitor that will meet all your needs by exploring the different classes and subclasses for these components. 

Safety capacitors are passive electronic components designed to mitigate the effects of transient voltages and interference in electrical circuits. Safety capacitors are designed to help safeguard users and equipment from electrical hazards, even in the event of failure. Since these components are commonly used in AC line filtering and power supply circuits where failure could lead to electric shock, fire, or equipment damage, safety capacitors are subject to stringent testing and certification requirements. 

Inductors are a fundamental component in electronic circuits, but not all inductors perform equally across different frequency ranges. At high frequencies, standard power inductors suffer from increased losses, reduced efficiency, and undesirable parasitic effects. RF inductors, specifically designed for radio frequency and microwave applications, address these challenges by minimizing resistive losses, optimizing self-resonant frequency, and maintaining signal integrity.

Here, we examine the distinguishing characteristics of RF inductors, highlighting how they differ from other inductor types and why they are essential in high-frequency applications.

Knowles makes a wide range of capacitors. To really understand the breadth of our offerings, it helps to look at the scale of energy storage they offer. From tiny bypass capacitors in medical implants to massive energy-storage banks used in fusion experiments, our products span an incredible range. 

From high-power radar to advanced medical imaging, many cutting-edge technologies rely on precisely controlled high-energy pulses. However, generating a pulse that delivers consistent power without distortion isn’t as simple as discharging a capacitor. These systems rely on Pulse Forming Networks (PFNs) to shape and control high-energy pulses. 

Capacitors and inductors are two closely related components that frequently work together in RF circuit design. While both store energy, they do so in distinct ways. Capacitors store energy in an electric field and help regulate voltage changes, whereas inductors store energy in a magnetic field and resist changes in current.