What the AI Build-Out Did to Your General-Purpose MLCC

The AI build-out is not taking your parts. It is taking the capacity that made them. We counted Walsin Technology (Walsin) 0402 MLCC at 1 µF and above: 61 part numbers, and 57 sit in General Purpose alone. That one series carries the corner AI servers consume. Squeeze it and ordinary boards wait.

Venatech Limited, an authorised Walsin distributor in Hong Kong, holds all 203 of Walsin’s parametric export files and 28 Walsin datasheets. This post is written from the 24,025 real rows of the MLCC export and the 1,125-line ready-stock snapshot dated 23 September 2026. Every part number below is real and every count is of part numbers, not pieces.

Which MLCC does the AI build-out actually consume?

High-capacitance MLCC in 0402 and 0201, at low rated voltage, in enormous quantities per board. That is the decoupling and bulk-bypass population sitting under and around a large processor package. It is not an exotic part. It is the same 1 µF and 10 µF X5R that a phone, a router or a set-top box uses, which is exactly why the collision happens.

Venatech does not hold any system vendor’s bill of materials, and nothing here is an NVIDIA, GB200 or other platform BOM. We have no approval from any system vendor and make no claim of one. What we hold is Walsin’s published catalogue, and the useful question that catalogue can answer is narrower and more actionable: where is this class of part thin, and what else can cover the position?

How many Walsin 0402 parts reach 1 µF?

Sixty-one rows, which is 59 distinct part numbers, out of 3,990 rows at 0402. Nine of them reach 10 µF or more. Measured from 00_ALL_MLCC_parts_combined.xlsx, parsing the Capacitance field and grouping on the Size field.

The split by series is the finding:

Of Walsin’s 3,082 automotive MLCC rows, not one reaches 1 µF at 0402. The automotive ceiling at that case size is 680 nF, on MG15X684K100 in the MG series, which is the automotive series without AEC-Q200. At 0201 the automotive ceiling is 10 nF. We have not seen this counted anywhere, and it is the whole reason the general-purpose line is load-bearing.

Can an AEC-Q200 part cover a 0402 1 µF position?

Not from Walsin, at that case size. The MT series — the one Walsin’s datasheets describe as qualified to AEC-Q200 — stops at 100 nF at 0402 and at 10 nF at 0201. Its first 1 µF part is MT18B105K160, and that is an 0603.

So a 0402 1 µF position has exactly two honest routes: accept a general-purpose part and qualify it in your own circuit, or change the footprint to 0603 and gain an AEC-Q200-compliant option. Walsin’s datasheets say compliant, not certified, and Venatech makes no qualification claim of its own. Ask for the qualification report covering the exact part number before design-in.

What does a 0402 1 µF 6.3 V position look like across Walsin’s series?

Seven real parts against one requirement — 0402, 1 µF, X5R, 6.3 Vdc. The point of the table is the mismatch column. We will not tell you a part fits; we will show you where it differs.

Four of the seven match on capacitance, case size and voltage class and still differ in a field that decides whether the part goes on your board. Confirm against both datasheets and qualify in your own circuit — that step stays with you, and we will not pretend otherwise.

Why does a squeeze on general-purpose capacity hit your boring boards first?

Because the general-purpose line is the only line that carries the whole capacitance range. An automotive or soft-termination series is a narrow slice; General Purpose spans 8,467 rows from a fraction of a picofarad to 220 µF. A board that needs ordinary 100 nF decoupling and a board that needs 10 µF bulk bypass draw on the same series, and so does the accelerator board. The part that gets reallocated is not the specialist one.

What we can tell you is what is in Walsin’s catalogue and what was physically in Hong Kong on 23 September 2026. Those two are checkable, which is the point.

What should a buyer in the United States or Germany do this week?

Decide which positions genuinely need the small case, then cross the rest in one pass. A 1 µF position at 0402 has 61 Walsin candidates and no AEC-Q200-compliant option; the same value at 0603 has 148, including compliant parts. Three steps, in this order.

1. Separate the positions that actually need the small case from the ones that inherited it. A 1 µF at 0402 that could be a 0603 opens up a far wider field, including AEC-Q200-compliant options. The table above shows why.
2. Cross the whole BOM at once, not part by part. Paste up to 500 part numbers or drop your Excel or CSV into the free cross-reference tool. It is matched against Walsin’s published catalogue and returns candidates field by field, with every difference from your original stated rather than hidden. Filter by commercial or automotive grade, or for soft termination, high temperature, safety certified, high Q / low ESR or low profile.
3. Check what is already sitting in Hong Kong on ready stock before you commit to a production slot. That page is a dated snapshot, not a live feed, and 101 of the 1,125 codes in it have no row in any parametric export at all — so ask us about those.

For the method behind step 2, see How to cross-reference an MLCC. For the automotive series split, see AEC-Q200 MLCC: MT vs MG series. The full range is on the Walsin MLCC range page.

What can Venatech add that a manufacturer’s selector cannot?

We hold the 28 datasheets a selector does not, we counted the six MLCC series that have a full Walsin approval sheet and zero rows in the parametric export, and we publish the 18 document types that appear nowhere in our 451 pages. Three things, all documentary rather than clever.

First, we hold the 28 datasheets and will send the one that covers your part number, which matters because the export disagrees with the datasheet in places. Second, we counted the gaps: six MLCC series have a full Walsin approval sheet on file and zero rows in the parametric export, so no catalogue selector — ours included — can offer them, and we can tell you that rather than returning nothing. Third, we will say what we do not hold. REACH, SVHC, conflict minerals, PFAS, China RoHS, ISO 9001, IATF 16949, PPAP, IMDS and a declaration of conformity appear nowhere in the 451 pages we hold. That is not a statement about Walsin; it is a statement about our file, and you need it before a supplier-approval submission rather than after.

The short version

The parts AI servers consume are high-capacitance MLCC in the smallest cases, and in Walsin’s catalogue that corner is served almost entirely by one series. Only 61 of 3,990 0402 rows reach 1 µF; 57 of those are General Purpose; none of the 3,082 automotive rows reaches 1 µF at 0402, and the AEC-Q200 ceiling there is 100 nF. So the effect of the build-out on an ordinary board is indirect and real: the line under pressure is the general-purpose line your product already uses. Decide which positions truly need 0402, then cross the rest in one pass. Qualification stays with you.

Paste your list or drop your BOM into the free cross-reference tool and we will come back with Walsin candidates field by field, differences included — then tell you which of them was in Hong Kong on 23 September 2026.

Frequently asked questions