@W5V0's answer is true. But Front-end can mean RTL-level design (Verilog or VHDL) and back-end is the chip-specific work (e.g. synthesis, mapping to gates) that results in a GDS-II file for the chip manufacturer.
If I could get a ceramic capacitor at the capacitance of 10uF and within my voltage requirements, which from my initial searches I can, what problems would I experience if I were to change, if any?
Some circuits (like some linear regulators, for example), require a certain minimum ESR from the output capacitor, which could cause the circuit to oscillate when using a ceramic but not with an electrolytic.
In a precision circuit, a ceramic might not be preferred due to microphonics, but in those cases you probably wouldn't want an electrolytic either.
Otherwise, ceramics are generally preferred. They'll have lower ESR, they're not polarized, they need less voltage de-rating, and so on.
Finally, when searching SMD footprint standards, the common packages seem to be 0402, 0603, and 0805, where they increase in physical size respectively, but also power rating, which suggests to me I should use as large of a package as possible
Usually you choose the smallest package you can get away with because you want to fit as much circuit as you can in the smallest footprint.
Also, for ceramics, the larger sizes (1210 and higher) can have reliability issues because they can be cracked if the board flexes.
Best Answer
MIM (Metal-Insulator-Metal) and MOM (Metal-Oxide-Metal) capacitors are both metal-to-metal capacitors.
In MIM capacitors, metal plates are stacked on top of each other and separated by a (thin) layer of silicon oxide. Usually this thin oxide is made in a special processing step as the "normal" oxide between metal layers is much thicker (for robustness), which would result in much less capacitance per area. I have seen MIM caps provide around 1-2 femto Farads per square micrometer.
Most MIM capacitors use Metal 5 as the bottom plate, a thin oxide layer, and then a "Metal MIM" as the top plate which is then connected with vias to Metal 6 which will be the usable top plate connection. Direct connections to the "Metal MIM" are not allowed.
I have also seen "dual MIM" structures where there is a second thin oxide layer on top of the "Metal MIM" which connects (via Metal 6) to the Metal 5 bottom plate. This can almost double the density of a MIM cap.
Another type of capacitor is the Fringe capacitor, which uses only one metal layer. This capacitor relies on the fringe capacitance (side capacitance). A top view would look like:
MOM Capacitors are composed of stacked fringe capacitors:
Of these three, the MIM cap gives the highest capacitance per area in my experience .
That sums up the Metal capacitors which:
can have quite accurate values, for a large cap. tolerance can be 1%
the capacitance is independent of the voltage, in other words, these caps are very linear.
often you can place these caps on top of other circuits as they are metal-only.
they can take quite a lot of area.
For the MIM cap (with the thin oxide) There are often special design rules to prevent ESD and manufacturing damage.
Other capacitor types are the non-metal ones:
MOS capacitors: these are often like a PMOS where the gate is the top plate and the Drain/Source connections are the bottom plate. The MOS capacitor's value is very dependent on the applied DC voltage!
Diode based capacitors: these are basically varicaps as their capacitance changes with the DC voltage.
Both these caps are non-linear as their capacitance changes with the applied DC biasing voltage (as opposed by the metal-caps which do not suffer from this).
Their density can be higher than a MIM cap provided you DC-bias these capacitors at the right voltage. For local supply decoupling (where the DC voltage is constant anyway) especially the MOS capacitor is quite useful.