The successful 1,000-hour durability test result demonstrates that the CNF-MIM capacitors meet industry requirements for stability over time, and that Smoltek Semi has a solution that can help ensure the stable and efficient operation of future high-performance chips (semiconductors). At the same time, the results strengthen the company's ongoing industrialization work with Yageo and other potential partners, further bringing the technology closer to commercial production.

"The results are extremely promising - they demonstrate that our CNF-MIM concept is not only high-performance, but also fundamentally reliable over time under realistic operating conditions. We have already shared the outcome with Yageo, and thanks to this progress, the next durability test will be carried out directly at their facilities," says Farzan Ghavanini, CTO at Smoltek.

Test results in brief 
The test was conducted on 20 CNF-MIM capacitors that were continuously operated for 1,000 hours at 85°C while being biased at 2 V - standard conditions for capacitor industry durability tests. After the test, none of the capacitors showed any noticeable change in capacitance. More importantly, 19 out of 20 units maintained an insulation resistance above the target level of 1 GΩ, which is consistent with well-established industry criteria.

The single early outlier that did not meet the target had already been identified as the component with the highest leakage in the batch before the test started. Such early outliers ("infant failures") are normally sorted out in a burn-in step before reliability testing. Smoltek is now implementing this burn-in process, and with this step in place, the company expects all units in the future to pass corresponding test conditions.