Soft-Termination MLCC for Finland’s Forest-Machine, Marine and Telecom Electronics: 402 of 767 Walsin SH Parts Are Taller Than Their General-Purpose Twin, and 0 of 183 SG and ST Parts Are on Our Shelf

Soft termination MLCC for Finland is a height decision as much as a bend decision. Of 767 Walsin SH rows that have a general-purpose twin on the same size, dielectric, value, tolerance and voltage, 402 publish a taller maximum thickness, 346 the same and 19 a shorter one. Check height before you swap.

Venatech Limited, an authorised Walsin distributor in Hong Kong, wrote this post for Finnish design engineers and buyers who put multilayer ceramic capacitors on boards that flex, shake or freeze: forest machines, marine equipment and outdoor telecom cabinets. It is written from Walsin Technology (Walsin) 00_ALL_MLCC_parts_combined.xlsx (24,026 rows), six Walsin approval sheets and our Hong Kong stock snapshot dated 23 September 2026. Every part number is real and we re-counted every figure. The sector claims come from the sources listed at the end; the engineering judgement is ours and is labelled.

What is Finland’s electronics industry reporting, and why should a component buyer care?

Technology Industries of Finland estimated that the Finnish electronics and electrotechnical industry grew its turnover by about 6% in 2025 to roughly EUR 23 billion, covering telecommunications equipment, electrical equipment and medical technology. Its order books at the end of December 2025 stood 9% above a year earlier, while quarterly orders swung 25% up on the quarter and 1% down on the year. The organisation said such swings have been typical in recent years.

That swing is the buyer’s problem. Orders that jump 25% in a quarter and still sit 1% below the year before point to lumpy lots. A second, separate data point comes from a Finnish forest-machine maker’s half-year report, published 11 August 2026: January to June net sales of EUR 353.9 million, down 1.1%, and an order book of EUR 160.0 million against about EUR 192 million a year earlier. We cite it for the size of the machine-electronics market, not as a statement about any part. It says nothing about components, and we draw no supply conclusion from it. Our view, labelled as ours: when volumes arrive in lumps, the cheapest saving is to settle the capacitor specification early, including its construction.

Why would a forest-machine, marine or outdoor telecom design ask for soft termination?

Because bending the board is the failure you can test. Walsin’s own approval sheets set the bending test at 1 mm of substrate deflection for the General Purpose sheet and the MG sheet, 3 mm for the MT automotive sheet, and 5 mm for the SH, SG and ST soft-termination sheets. We opened each sheet and read test item 10, “Bending Test”, in each.

Walsin’s SH sheet describes the construction as a soft, flexible polymer layer in the termination to withstand high bending stress in surface-mount assembly. The sheet lists power supply and lighting among its applications, and the SG sheet lists automotive and power supply. Neither sheet names forestry, marine or telecom, and we do not claim they do. Our view: a harvester cab controller, a marine power module and an outdoor radio unit share the stress that decides whether this matters, a board that moves. The conditions of a test sheet are not your board, so confirm against the datasheet and qualify in your own circuit. We link the sheets rather than restate them: SH approval sheet (27 pages), SG sheet, General Purpose sheet. Our post on soft termination SH, SG, ST and VT explains the series codes.

How many Walsin MLCC have soft termination, and in which case sizes?

Three series carry a soft termination: SH (silver polymer), SG (copper polymer) and ST (automotive, AEC-Q200 compliant per its sheet). We parsed all 24,026 rows and counted 1,707 soft-termination parts: 1,524 SH rows, 65 SG and 118 ST, and 938 of the 1,707 (55%) sit at 1206 or larger. The larger the body, the more it matters, and the larger sizes are where the series is deepest.

One of the SH rows is a trap in its own right. SH has 1,524 rows but 1,488 distinct part numbers, so 36 extra rows repeat a part number, some with different published thicknesses. SH31B104J500 is listed at 0.80 ±0.10 mm and again at 1.25 ±0.10 mm. A BOM that joins on part number alone picks one at random. The orderable code is the same; the drawing you rely on is not, so ask which height ships.

Is a soft-termination part the same height as its general-purpose twin?

Often not. We have not seen this counted anywhere: of 767 SH rows that have a General Purpose twin on the same case size, dielectric, capacitance, tolerance and rated voltage, 402 (52%) publish a taller maximum thickness than the tallest twin, 346 publish the same and 19 a shorter one. We compared every SH row against the largest General Purpose maximum for the same key, so the 402 are taller than every twin, not just one. The thickness column was readable on 23,552 of 24,026 rows, and the match is counted on those.

The 1206 100 nF 50 V ±10% X7R line shows the mechanism. 1206B104K500 and MT31B104K500 publish 0.80 ±0.10 mm, while SH31B104K500 and SG31B104K500 publish 1.25 ±0.10 mm. That is a swap that fits the footprint, passes the electrical filter and can fail a keep-out. The MG series part MG31B104K500 also publishes 0.80 ±0.10 mm, but its Tolerance column reads -0.1, the defect we published earlier, so a tolerance filter will miss it. For the effect of voltage and size on the value itself, read our DC bias post for Finland.

Which soft-termination lines were on the Hong Kong shelf on 23 September 2026?

We held 33 SH lines and no SG or ST line. We joined our snapshot of 1,125 part numbers to the export by catalogue code and counted 33 SH codes, 30 of them in the export, and zero of the 183 SG and ST parts. Of the 30 matched, 16 have a General Purpose twin on the same key, and 13 of those 16 publish a taller maximum, 3 the same and none shorter.

The three SH codes with no row in the export are SH21B472J251, SH31B561K631 and SH31B332K202. That is the same class of gap as the 101 snapshot codes with no export row that we published earlier. The shelf covers 0402 to 2220, from SH15N271G500 to SH55B684K631, at 25 V to 3 kV. Snapshot packs show an SPQ of 500 to 4,000 on the SH lines held in Hong Kong, and the other lines show none, so ask for the pack. Quantities move; check Hong Kong ready stock and send the part for a dated answer. For a whole BOM, the BOM checker takes up to 500 part numbers or an Excel or CSV file.

The honest summary for a buyer who needs an automotive-grade soft-termination ST part, or the SG copper polymer, is that nothing is on the shelf and we do not hold a published lead time for either. Qualification stays with you.

What do we not hold or claim for a Finnish buyer?

We hold 28 Walsin datasheets (26 MLCC and 2 chip resistor, 451 pages) and send the one for your part number on request. We hold no document for a soft-termination part naming forestry, marine or telecom service, and nothing in the 451 pages is a declaration of conformity, a REACH statement or an IATF 16949 certificate. Those documents are not in the documents we hold, and we say so instead of implying them.

We also do not state a country of origin, and the sector figures above describe an industry, not a customer of ours. The SH sheet’s bend test is a laboratory condition. The ST sheet describes AEC-Q200 compliance, and compliance is the word, not certification. Ask us for the qualification report of the exact part number before you rely on it. A cross-reference result is a specification match against Walsin’s published catalogue, never an approval.

The short version

Finland’s electronics industry reported about EUR 23 billion turnover in 2025 and volatile orders. Walsin has 1,707 soft-termination parts, 55% at 1206 or larger. The bend test depth is 1 mm for General Purpose and MG, 3 mm for MT and 5 mm for SH, SG and ST. Of 767 SH rows with a twin, 402 are taller, so check the keep-out. We held 33 SH lines and none of the 183 SG and ST parts on 23 September 2026.

Paste your incumbent into the free cross-reference tool or send us the BOM lines that sit on flexing boards. We will return Walsin candidates with every difference stated, height included. Qualification stays with you. And a question: when did you last check the maximum thickness of the part you were about to call a drop-in? See the Walsin MLCC range.

Sources

Fetched 20 October 2026. Industry and company statements are taken from these pages and paraphrased; part data comes from our own Walsin exports, approval sheets and stock snapshot.

• Technology Industries of Finland, “Electronics and electrotechnical industry in Finland, Economic Outlook February 2026” (charts updated 31 January 2026): https://teknologiateollisuus.fi/en/economic-outlook-and-statistics/economic-outlook-archive/economic-outlook-1-2026/electronics-and-electrotechnical-industry-in-finland-economic-outlook-february-2026/
• Evertiq, “Order intake lifts outlook for Finnish electronics industry”, 5 March 2026: https://evertiq.com/news/2026-03-05-order-intake-lifts-outlook-for-finnish-electronics-industry
• Ponsse, half-year report 1 January to 30 June 2026, published 11 August 2026 (via Inderes): https://www.inderes.fi/en/releases/ponsses-half-year-report-for-1-january-30-june-2026
• Walsin approval sheets, test item 10 Bending Test: https://www.passivecomponent.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheet/WTC_MLCC_Soft_term_SH.pdf and https://www.passivecomponent.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheet/WTC_MLCC_General_Purpose.pdf

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