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Capacitance Unit Converter

Convert capacitance between farads, millifarads, microfarads, nanofarads, and picofarads.

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Formula

1 F = 10³ mF = 10⁶ μF = 10⁹ nF = 10¹² pF

How It Works

Capacitance is measured in farads (F), the SI unit named after Michael Faraday. Practical capacitors range from 1 pF (picofarad, 10⁻¹² F) for parasitic PCB capacitance to thousands of microfarads (μF) for bulk power supply filtering. Nanofarads (nF, 10⁻⁹ F) and picofarads (pF) are the most common units in RF and digital circuit design.

Worked Example

A 100 nF decoupling capacitor: 100 nF = 0.1 μF = 100,000 pF = 0.0001 mF. A 10 pF RF capacitor: 10 pF = 0.01 nF = 0.00001 μF. A 1000 μF electrolytic: 1000 μF = 1 mF = 1,000,000 nF = 10⁹ pF.

Practical Tips

  • ✓PCB trace-to-trace capacitance is typically 0.5–2 pF, which matters above 100 MHz.
  • ✓For decoupling, use 100 nF ceramic (handles RF frequencies) in parallel with 10 μF tantalum or electrolytic (handles low-frequency bulk charge).
  • ✓Capacitor codes on ceramics: three digits where the first two are the value and the third is the 10ⁿ multiplier in pF (e.g., 104 = 10 × 10⁴ pF = 100 nF).

Common Mistakes

  • ✗Mixing up pF and nF on schematics — a 10 pF capacitor is 1000× smaller than a 10 nF capacitor.
  • ✗European schematics sometimes use 'n' to mean nF and 'p' for pF, while US schematics may omit the prefix for pF values, causing confusion.
  • ✗In SPICE, failing to include the correct exponent — entering 100n instead of 100e-9 works correctly, but entering just 100 without a unit defaults to farads, giving a 100 F capacitor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Most discrete capacitors fall in the 1 pF to 1000 μF range. RF and high-frequency bypass capacitors are in the pF–nF range, while bulk filter and bypass capacitors for power are in the μF range.
Divide by 1000: 4700 pF = 4.7 nF. To convert nF to μF, divide by 1000 again: 100 nF = 0.1 μF.
One farad stores one coulomb of charge at one volt potential. A 1 F capacitor is very large — most supercapacitors and ultracapacitors are in the 1–3000 F range.
The first two digits (10) are the significant figures, the third digit (4) is the multiplier (10⁴). So 104 = 10 × 10⁴ pF = 100,000 pF = 100 nF = 0.1 μF.

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