Uh, wow, that article is special and by special in this case I mean "riding the short bus." I was not aware of this controversy because the closest I get to following gamer-related media is occasionally watching Zero Punctuation. Anyways... as an expert in the design and manufacture of electronics, I feel compelled to comment.
The component that contains tantalum (tantalum has few other uses) is known as a tantalum electrolytic (not "electric" as stated in the article) capacitor. They're pretty common in all manner of electronics. A capacitor is a device that stores energy in the form of electric field and capacitors in general are ubiquitous and necessary in electronics (the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor are the three most fundamental passive circuit elements). In consumer electronics, there are only three really common types of capacitor - multi-layer ceramic, aluminum electrolytic, and tantalum electrolytic (a fourth type, the polymer film capacitor, is seen occasionally in special applications). For reasons that I won't go into here, the tantalum type usually has the highest capacitance (the amount of energy it can store, more or less) per unit physical size of the capacitor. For certain applications it has also traditionally been the most cost-effective type. That tantalum has become quite expensive lately has essentially nothing to do with the PS2 and all to do with the global run-up in essentially all commodity prices (check gold lately?) and the decline of the dollar. Because they're generally no longer cheap and also because some people have ethical concerns about the circumstances under which tantalum is mined and refined, in general, designers are now using tantalum capacitors much less and often not at all... so it's not surprising that newer consoles (and newer other things) have few or no tantalum capacitors... and, as you point out, the PS2 is a bit long in the tooth at this point. When it was designed, the use of tantalum capacitors where appropriate was absolutely standard practice and I'm sure that competing consoles of the same generation used them too. Ok, I think I've said enough :)
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Date: 2008-07-25 03:37 pm (UTC)The component that contains tantalum (tantalum has few other uses) is known as a tantalum electrolytic (not "electric" as stated in the article) capacitor. They're pretty common in all manner of electronics. A capacitor is a device that stores energy in the form of electric field and capacitors in general are ubiquitous and necessary in electronics (the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor are the three most fundamental passive circuit elements). In consumer electronics, there are only three really common types of capacitor - multi-layer ceramic, aluminum electrolytic, and tantalum electrolytic (a fourth type, the polymer film capacitor, is seen occasionally in special applications). For reasons that I won't go into here, the tantalum type usually has the highest capacitance (the amount of energy it can store, more or less) per unit physical size of the capacitor. For certain applications it has also traditionally been the most cost-effective type. That tantalum has become quite expensive lately has essentially nothing to do with the PS2 and all to do with the global run-up in essentially all commodity prices (check gold lately?) and the decline of the dollar. Because they're generally no longer cheap and also because some people have ethical concerns about the circumstances under which tantalum is mined and refined, in general, designers are now using tantalum capacitors much less and often not at all... so it's not surprising that newer consoles (and newer other things) have few or no tantalum capacitors... and, as you point out, the PS2 is a bit long in the tooth at this point. When it was designed, the use of tantalum capacitors where appropriate was absolutely standard practice and I'm sure that competing consoles of the same generation used them too. Ok, I think I've said enough :)