Murata Manufacturing Company, Ltd., well known maker of filters, ferrite devices, and other electrical components, has announced that it has reached an agreement with Showa Denko K.K. to purchase that firm’s functional polymer capacitor business. The actual transfer of ownership is expected to take place later in 2009. The Murata announcement stressed its corporate commitment to expand its capacitor solutions internationally and to move beyond reliance on ceramic type capacitors. A functional polymer capacitor uses conductive polymer for its negative electrode. This type of capacitor is characterized by low ESR and conductivity of the negative electrode that is 1000 to 10,000 higher than conventional electrolytic capacitors.See the original announcement on the Murata website.