While general purpose aluminum electrolytic capacitors are the cheapest option when tens to hundreds of microfarads of capacitance are needed, most industrial applications are seeking high reliability with long life times and performance expectations that cannot be met with an aluminum electrolytic capacitor. Attempts can be made to meet the application needs by building large banks of MLCCs. However, given the biased effect of MLCC’s, much of the name plate capacitance is never realized at these voltage levels, so excessive amounts of capacitance are needed to ensure the proper function of the circuit. These efforts are typically more costly than using a polymer solution. Placement cost, board space and reliability are also negatively impacted due to the higher number of components that must be used. To best meet the needs of this application, designers will move to polymer capacitor solutions. While the individual piece price will be higher, the polymer capacitor solution will be the lowest total cost while still meeting the reliability expectations of many end products.