decoupling caps placement

Sometimes I've seen capacitor strips that can be cut to length, but never did find a supplier.

Some types of IC socket have an open centre that you can mount a small capacitor diagonally, normally 0.1uF non-electrolytics (very low ESR) are ok if you decouple every chip as long as you fit a few electrolytics distributed around the board.

The purpose of the decoupling capacitors is to insure that ICs maintain sufficient supply voltage during those times when time-varying currents flow through the supply pins. This time-varying current is mathematically referred to as di/dt (the rate of change of current with respect to time).

The voltage lost during these time-varying events is:

V=L*di/dt

where L is the inductance around the loop where this current flows.

The longer the path is from a capacitor to the IC then the larger L is.

However, in your case, these 4049s, due to their intrinsically-low di/dt and the di/dt caused by their loads, should have a fairly small total di/dt for each IC/cap combination.

So, don't worry too much about the copper paths between the IC's VCC, GND, and the capacitors. Just keep the copper fairly thick. You can utilize any local VCC and/or GND plane, too.

You have to know a lot about your di/dt requirements, the characteristics of a given capacitor, and the IC supply tolerance in order to make an accurate assessment of what type and size of capacitor to use. For your design, a

Most designers start out their designs with each IC having its own bypass cap(s). Only after the layout process begins will we make judgments as to whether or not the total number of caps can be reduced.

Bob

In our day we call them by pass cap's and as far as i'm concerned, they still are.

As on your question. I've found that the by pass cap really helps in removing load variations from a previous path from another component that may also be taxing the rail and causing unstable voltages. Placing by pass caps between the components as you go along normally cures it. Unless you're trying to work with high freq R.F. design, I don't think having a little lead way isn't going to hurt any.

They're not like resistors. Parallel capacitance adds:

C1 || C2 || C3 = C1 + C2 + C3

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Place the cap near the voltage pin of the IC, so the lead/trace between the Vcc pin and capacitor is as short as possible. Ground the other end of the cap to the nearest ground point.

As the capacitor supplies voltage to the IC either for switching or ripple reduction the voltage is supplied at the pin of the IC, and not inches aways.

It dosen't hurt to add two caps in parallel;

For that chip a 100nF (0.1u) ceramic up by pin 1, with a lead straight to pin 1 and another one straight to pin 8 will be more than sufficient.

You can think about reducing them later -- but why? Unless you're trying to shave deci-pennies off of the board cost, it's better to have too many bypass caps than just enough.

There are many ways to do this depending on how your board and circuit are layed out.

For instance, on say 2 layer boards it's common to have a "power strip" going underneath the IC that feeds ground and power to a whole row of chips end-on-end, so you can put the cap at the end of the chip in this case.

When you go to multiple layer board you usually have a ground plane that provides a nice low impedance ground path for you. So in this case you would put the cap next to the positive power pin and then to the ground plane.

Other circuit topologies may dictate something different again.

Ideally it should be the ground pin of the IC. But in your case any nearby ground node will almost certainly do. A 4049 is not a fast device, so it's not likely to be at all critical.

What you are after is (simplistically) the shortest electrical "loop" path between the positive power pin, through your decoupling cap, and back to the ground pin on the chip. The shorter the better.

That's the general rule of thumb, yes.

It's not just the capacitance, it's the inductance (and resistance) of the entire power/ground "loop" that matters. It's a complex thing.

This is complex area and has to do with all sorts of factors. Generally, if the datasheet for your device does not specifically say so, then one cap will be sufficient. If it's critical, then the datasheet might recommend two or three caps of different values and types.

Dave.

RS ( Radiospares rswww.com ) and others do a socket with an integrated decoupling cap. Costs an arm and a leg though !

But you don't need it for 4000 series. OTOH if it's a double sided board place on the reverse side two traces from the power pins to the middle of the chip and put an SMT cap there. But he is worrying about nothing.

Graham

You mean YOUR day and btw you don't use apostrophes for plurals.

NO. They're called DEcoupling caps as opposed to coupling caps. Because they do DE opposite ! ;~)

Graham

Thank goodness this is the basics group ! I don't expect it'll be long before we see graduates claiming the same though.

Graham

Heck, I don't even always bother with one decoupling cap per chip with HC logic !

Now consider a 40MHz '8051' with the power on pins 20 and 40 !

Graham

But it's 4000 series ! It's almost ANALOG !

In fact some analog circuits do use 4000 series.

Graham

Duuuh....

Sorry, but I wasn't thinking - forgot they add up opposite to resistors.

Thanks for correcting me on that.

Some general comments on effective grounding and decoupling pitched at hobbyists (pros will know how much they can save by cutting back on both, but for the rest of us, the small additional cost is easily repaid by time saved debugging a glitchy circuit):

By ground, I and most other dabblers in low voltage electronics mean chassis, common rail, 0V, battery negative, Logic negative supply etc, NOT a hard wired connection to a copper stake in the earth. Electricians are different - when they say ground, they mean ground!

If building on veroboard or solderless breadboard, make sure you have reliable power and ground rails. Except in exceptional circumstances, DONT wire them point to point. (low level audio is an exceptional circumstance with special layout and decoupling requirements as are high gain RF amplifiers and high power circuits in general.)

Most solderless breadboards have long rails of contact positions on each edge, USE THEM (but beware of boards with a split between two halves of the rail half way down it, they need a link inserted). Local decoupling can be put over the top of critical ICs. Have an electrolytic capacitor across the power rails where the power comes onto the board. Somewhere between 10 and 100uF axial type is a good choice for most circuits on breadboard.

If building digital or RF circuits on veroboard, you need a *solid* ground rail. 2 or 3 tracks tied together at intervals along the board is about right, or use the board crossways and run a heavy bare solid copper buss wire along the top tacked down at intervals to any tracks you want grounded by a little loop of bare wire over it, soldered through two adjacent holes and to the copper buss wire.

Power rails can be done the same way but are usually less critical. On veroboard, if you are using thin kynar wirewrap wire or similar for your signal wires, DONT use it for power and ground.

All decoupling caps should lead as directly as possible to the ground buss and to the + supply pin of the chip in question. 0.022uF to 0.1uF disk or resin dipped ceramic capacitors are generally suitable for individual chips. The chip should be located for the most direct ground connection possible. If there is more length of wire than the width of the board between the power supply and the board, put an electrolytic (typically around 100x the individual ceramic capacitors) accross power and ground where the supply wires go. Add an additional electrolytic decoupling cap for every 10 chips.

The aim is to keep everything happily stable with respect to the ground bus with any bounce from one IC switching *NOT* getting into other ones.

With some care with layout, bread boards are good for circuits operating at up to a couple of MHz and veroboard up to a few tens of Mhz.

In the case of the OP's 4049 logic circuit, *ALL* 4000 series logic is slow and low power so needs minimal decoupling. If there is no other power consuming circuit on the board, a single 0.1uf ceramic located centrally, WITH THE POWER SUPPLY WIRES CONNECTED DIRECTLY TO IT and as short as possible supply and ground wires radiating to the three chips will almost certainly be fine. If there are LEDs, a speaker or relay or other high current loads, add an electrolytic capacitor as well. However, I wouldn't build it that way unless I needed minimum size/weight.

If one is etching double sided PCBs or building complicated processor boards etc., one is out of the 'dabbler' category, even if still an amateur, so had better have a PROFESSIONAL understanding of layout grounding and decoupling, othewise you will get PRO sised grief as alluded to by Graham (Eeyore) in his first reply.

Go fly a kite you little fairy..

You don't know the difference between the two, it's obvious.

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Thanks for your reply Ian.

I am building on a non-etched board - one of those perfboards with little copper pads you solder to (I assume this is the same as veroboard). What are some of the special layout and decoupling requirements you mentioned in low level audio circuits? I don't have any actual audio on this particular board - it contains 3 voltage regulators (for 5, 9, and 12v) along with the