MM>  JH> AFAIK those bulging top caps are likely a sign of impending death,

MM> The bulging caps are caused by age, drying out of the
MM> electrolyte, and high temperature.  Lots of factors enter
MM> the picture.  All electrolytics dry out with age, starting
MM> from the assembly line and warehouse storage!

And failures can sometimes be caused by (ahem) "other" factors...

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

(c)Yu-Tzu Chiu (Taipei) & Samuel K. Moore
URL: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org (Modified: 31 January 2003)

FAULTS & FAILURES

Leaking Capacitors Muck up Motherboards

Finger-pointing and fury as manufacturers try to dodge blame

It has all the elements of a good thriller: a stolen secret
formula, bungled corporate espionage, untraceable goods, and
lone wolves saving the little guy from the misdeeds of multinational
corporations. In this case, a mistake in the stolen formulation of
the electrolyte in a capacitor has wrecked hundreds of PCs and may
wreck still more in what is an industrywide problem.

Aluminum electrolytic capacitors with a low equivalent series
resistance (ESR) are high-capacitance components that generally
serve to smooth out the power supply to chips. Throughout 2002,
they have been breaking open and failing in certain desktop PCs.
Motherboard and PC makers contacted by IEEE Spectrum have stopped
using the faulty parts, but because the parts can fail over a
period of several months, more such failures are expected.

So far, the only motherboard maker to admit to the problem is
ABIT Computer Corp. (Taipei), and the only major PC maker to
acknowledge being affected is IBM Corp. But the problem is likely
to be more widespread. Indeed, those who have repaired the damaged
boards say that they have encountered crippled motherboards from
Micro-Star International, ASUSTek Computer, Gigabyte Technology,
and others.

For Gary Headlee, who repairs electronics in Midvale, Utah, the
trouble surfaced at the end of 2001, when users of PCs with ABIT
motherboards began to complain of leaking capacitors. Headlee's
solution was to replace all the low-ESR aluminum electrolytic
capacitors of 1000 microfarads or over. By last summer he was
receiving as many as 10 broken boards through the mail every
day, and he estimates he has fixed 1200 boards so far. At about
the same time, Carey Holzman, who builds and sells custom PCs,
noticed the identical problem in non-ABIT computers he had sold
and others he was asked to repair [see photo]. In 12 years of
PC repair, "I've never seen anything like it," says Holzman,
owner of Computer Performance Specialists (Glendale, Ariz.).

It is clear now that a faulty electrolyte is to blame for the
burst capacitors. The mystery is: where did it come from and
which manufacturers used it? Citing Japanese sources, initial
reports claimed that major Taiwanese capacitor firms, including
the island's market leaders, Lelon Electronics Corp. and Luxon
Electronics Corp., had turned out faulty products. But both
companies have denied the accusations.

Most of the leaking capacitors pulled from bad boards in the
United States, according to repair people, were labeled Tayeh,
not a brand affiliated with known capacitor makers. Many others
were unmarked.

Some, however, did bear the trademarks of Taiwanese passive
components firms such as Jackcon Capacitor Electronics Co. (Taipei).
Jackcon claims that it has been out of the motherboard market for
two years but received some complaints from U.S. consumers in 2002.
John Ko, its managing director, blames the motherboard design and
remains confident in the quality of Jackcon products. According to
Ko, the company's low-ESR capacitors passed quality tests at the
Industrial Technology Research Institute (Hsinchu, Taiwan), a
nonprofit R&D organization partly funded by the Ministry of Economic
Affairs (Taipei), which is also often the source of Taiwanese firms'
electrolyte formulas.


What happened?

The origins of the motherboard malaise seem a lesson in how not
to commit corporate espionage. A well-placed source in Taiwan,
who did not wish to be identified, largely confirmed for Spectrum
accounts published in the United States that were based on sources
in the Japanese electronics industry. According to the source,
a scientist stole the formula for an electrolyte from his employer
in Japan and began using it himself at the Chinese branch of
a Taiwanese electrolyte manufacturer. He or his colleagues then
sold the formula to an electrolyte maker in Taiwan, which began
producing it for Taiwanese and possibly other capacitor firms.
Unfortunately, the formula as sold was incomplete.

"It didn't have the right additives," says Dennis Zogbi, publisher
of Passive Component Industry magazine (Cary, N.C.), which broke
the story last fall. According to Zogbi's sources, the capacitors
made from the formula become unstable when charged, generating
hydrogen gas, bursting, and letting the electrolyte leak onto
the circuit board. Zogbi cites tests by Japanese manufacturers
that indicate the capacitor's lifetimes are half or less of the
4000 hours of continuous ripple current they are rated for.

Electronics makers are ordinarily very careful about capacitor
quality. "The large volumes of passive content in any electronic
device means that you have that many more chances for a product
to fail," says Zogbi, who also runs The Paumanok Group (Cary,
N.C.), a market analysis firm focused on the passive components
industry. Electronics firms generally supply their manufacturers
with a list of parts and materials they can use from suppliers
whose quality they trust. Zogbi suspects that, in an effort to
cut costs, contract manufacturers used dodgy component sources
that were not on the approved list.

Major Taiwanese capacitor makers have vigorously denied having
made any bad components, but the crisis has had a chilling effect
on the island's whole industry, which produces 30 percent of
the world's aluminum electrolytic capacitors.

"Many buyers refused to maintain their relationship with Taiwanese
firms," says Francis Tsai, spokesman for Luxon Electronics (Taipei),
the second-largest aluminum electrolytic capacitor maker in Taiwan.
ABIT, which is arguably the hardest hit, now is going to Japan
for its capacitors.

___----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exploding capacitors blow the lid off a case of intellectual
property theft in the electronics industry
___----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The effect on Lien Yan (Taichung, Taiwan), the company accused
of buying the stolen formula and selling the faulty electrolyte,
has been just as devastating. The firm has vehemently denied
the accusations, but it has lost 30 percent of its orders since
the problems came to light, says C.H. Lee, a manager at Lien
Yan. The company normally produces more than 60 tons of electrolyte
monthly for customers in Taiwan, China, and Japan. Currently,
Lee says, orders are only from small local firms.
Lien Yan and Taiwanese capacitor makers claim they are the victims
of a smear campaign by Japanese competitors who are saying that
all Taiwanese capacitor makers are tainted. The price ratio of
Japanese products to Taiwanese was about four to one, according
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