Electronic – Bypass capacitors between via and chip

bypass-capacitorpcb-design

In Decoupling caps, PCB layout, three variants of placing bypass caps are presented:

Placement

In the comments, it is mentioned that C19 is the worst approach, C18 slightly better and C13 the best way, which is somewhat contrary to my understanding, so I'd like some clarification.

I'd expect the C19 layout to be close to optimal:

  • the capacitor is placed in-line between the vias to the supply planes, so high-frequency components can be filtered out optimally
  • the vias are not too far apart

I'd probably use wider traces between the capacitor and the vias (Altera's AN574 suggests that).

C13 is a bit closer to the IC, but the vias are on the far end of the connection, so I'd expect worse behavior at high frequencies (probably too high to matter, but…)

The C18 layout is the worst:

  • the vias are far apart, increasing inductive impedance
  • the loop is fairly large
  • same issues as C13 with high frequency ripple

Where am I going wrong with my analysis?

Best Answer

The EMC right approach is C19 because the high-frequency ripple which is generated from the IC is routed over the C19 pads and therefore it is filtered.

Keep the resonance frequency in mind. If noise is generated at >300MHz a "classic" 100nF 0603 (1608 Metric) X7R capacitor is too big because its resonance frequency is at about 20MHz and on frequencies bigger than that it starts to work like an inductor. A capacitor with 1nF or 100pF would be needed here.

To simulate that you can us REDEXPERT or SimSurfing. The size and the voltage rating of the capacitor plays a big role too.

There are two aspects:

  • Reduction of the noise and high-frequency ripple
  • Power delivery for the IC

The result of those two considerations is to use multiple capacitors in different technologies:

  1. A few hundred pF to a few nF (e.g. 100pF to 3.3nF in 0402 or 0603) as close as possible in the C19 way (route from the IC to the capacitor and then go down to planes with vias)
  2. A bigger ceramic cap with a few hundred nF (100nF - 1uF)
  3. A tantalum cap with a few uF

This is my approach to reduce EMC.