The value of a
standard capacitor may vary slightly with frequency because the imperfect medium between its electrodes has varying degrees of dielectric relaxation over the frequency range and the leads and electrodes of the capacitor have residual inductance.
Figure 1 illustrates the structural differences between a
standard capacitor and an X2Y component; every "hot" electrode (labeled A and B) is surrounded by a reference electrode.
At the heart of the new technique lies the ability to count individual electrons and pump them through a circuit to charge up a
standard capacitor with a known number of electrons.
The design incorporates common shielding electrodes that form a Faraday Cage around the
standard capacitor. The addition of the common electrode creates two matched or balanced capacitors enabling simultaneous line-to-line and line-to-ground filtering.
Figure 12 shows the final schematic with parasitics added,
standard capacitors and optimized inductor values.