Alps Electric Co., Ltd.

Takayuki Fujita

Yoshihiro Taguchi

Hisashi Komatsu

Katsuhisa Osada

Michita Suzuki

A resistor is provided that is made by laminating at least two resistive layers, where these resistors have conductive particles held in a binder resin. The resistors are laminated such that a top resistor covers a bottom resistor, and a surface of the top resistor is exposed. The resistivity of the top resistor is made smaller than that of the bottom resistor. The top resistor contains carbon fiber and carbon black, where the central particle size of the carbon fiber ranges from 3.5 to 9.0 &mgr;m. The resistor has excellent durability and micro-linearity characteristics. The resistor may also be used as a variable resistor.

Resistor excellent in micro-linearity characteristic and variable resistor using the same

A variable resistor uses a carbon fiber-base resistor with a specific distribution of carbon particle sizes. Because the particle size distribution of carbon fiber is approximately equal to the normal distribution and 80% by volume or more carbon fiber is included in the particle size range from 1 to 20 &mgr;m, high conductivity in the fiber length direction of carbon fiber that is served as structural material for improving the wear resistance does not affect the micro-linearity.

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Miyagi-ken, Japan

Takayuki Fujita