by the researchers of the Sprague Electric Company. Preston Robinson, Sprague's Director of Research, is considered to be the actual inventor of tantalum capacitors in 1954. His invention was supported by R. J. Millard, who introduced the "reform" step in 1955, a significant improvement in which the dielectric of the capacitor was repaired after each dip-and-convert cycle of MnO2 deposition. This dramatically reduced the leakage current of the finished capacitors. This first solid electrolyte manganese dioxide had 10 times better conductivity than all other types of non-solid electrolyte capacitors. In the style of tantalum pearls, they soon found wide use in radio and new television devices. In 1971, Intel launched its first microcomputer (the MCS 4) and 1972 Hewlett Packard launched one of the first pocket calculators (the HP 35). The requirements for capacitors increased, especially the demand for lower losses. The equivalent series resistance (ESR) for bypass and decoupling capacitors of standard electrolytic capacitors needed to be decreased. Although solid tantalum capacitors offered lower ESR and leakage current values than the aluminum electrolytics, in 1980 a price shock for tantalum in the industry dramatically reduced the usability of tantalum capacitors, especially in consumer entertainment electronics. In search of cheaper alternatives, the industry switched back to using aluminum electrolytic capacitors. The development of conducting polymers by Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa in 1975 was a break-through in point of lower ESR. The conductivities of conductive polymers such as polypyrrole (PPy) or PEDOT are better by a factor of 1000 than that of manganese dioxide, and are close to the conductivity of metals. In 1993 NEC introduced their SMD polymer tantalum electrolytic capacitors, called "NeoCap". In 1997 Sanyo followed with their "POSCAP" polymer tantalum chips. A new conductive polymer for tantalum polymer capacitors was presented by Kemet at the "1999 Carts" conference. This capacitor used the newly developed organic conductive polymer PEDT Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), also known as PEDOT (trade name Baytron). This development to low ESR capacitors with high CV-volumes in chip style for the rapid growing SMD technology in the 1990s increased the demand on tantalum chips dramatically. However, another price explosion for tantalum in 2000/2001 forced the development of niobium electrolytic capacitors with manganese dioxide electrolyte, which have been available since 2002. The materials and processes used to produce niobium-dielectric capacitors are essentially the same as for existing tantalum-dielectric capacitors. The characteristics of niobium electrolytic capacitors and