Bonding fired multilayer capacitors into a stack

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention overcomes the aforementioned fragility of prior assemblies of fired multilayer capacitors by assembling a multiplicity of prefired ceramic capacitors, each containing a plurality of electrode plates.
A layer of a glass frit-metal silicate mixture is applied to one side of each prefired multilayer capacitor chip.
Then the coated capacitors are assembled to form a stack.
At this point the stack can be fired at a suitable firing temperature to set the pulverized glass or glass frit-metal silicate layer and produce a solid, permanent bond between all the abutted chips.
The assembly can then be further processed by applying silver or other metal terminal stripes on sides of the fired stack to serve as contact terminals for the capacitor electrodes.
The silver stripes can then be set by firing the stack once again.
Electrical leads can then be soldered to the metal stripes.
Thereafter the entire stack can be encapsulated in a glass enclosure.
This is done by coating the stack with glass frit in a suitable liquid vehicle.
The stack can be fired a third time to set the glass encapsulation.
It has been found that the assembled thrice fired stack is very rugged and will resist mechanical and thermal shocks without cracking or degradation of electrical parameters.
In a modification of the process, the assembly is performed with a single firing, to embody the stack of ceramic slabs, terminal stripes, and glass encapsulation in a monolithic structure, which has all the desirable properties of an assembly formed by a plurality of firings of a stack.
These and other objects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will be readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings in which: