How to place decoupling Capacitors in a star ground design

decoupling-capacitorgrounding

I am in the process of routing a star-grounded amplifier pcb and wondered on how to connect the decoupling capacitors. As I see it I have two choices:

  1. Connect the ground of the capacitors directly to the star-ground point.
  2. Connect the ground of the capacitors "in series" between the star-ground point and the GND of the amplifier.

Basically:

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

Best Answer

The decoupling capacitor must be connected as close as possible to the supply pins of the device in order to minimize inductance in the high-frequency loop. This is true regardless of what grounding scheme is in use.