Hello Aaditya, Istvan and Rick gave you good answers . I want to add that increasing number of decoupling capacitances might cause strong PDN system resonance. PDN noise resonance, next in tern, causes on-chip signals Jitter resonance. We did experiments which demonstrate these effects and described its in a paper "SOC-System Jitter Resonance and Its Impact on Common Approach to the PDN Impedance", 2008. You might see this paper here: http://www.seriallite.com/search?output=xml_no_dtd&sortÚte%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&client=www_frontend&proxystylesheet=www_frontend&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&site=www&q=SOC-system%20Jitter%20resonance If you have troubles to use this link, let me know and I'll send you a paper. Continuation of this research published recently at Designcon 2012 - "On-chip Jitter and System Power Integrity". Increasing the decoupling have been a common approach at PCB design for many years. As papers demonstrates, increasing number of decoupling capacitors often makes situation even worse. Regards, Iliya Zamek Semtech Corp. ________________________________ From: Istvan Novak <istvan.novak@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: aaditya.kandibanda@xxxxxxxxx Cc: si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2012 9:33 PM Subject: [SI-LIST] Re: Bypass Capacitance? Hello Aaditya, When we consider the entire chain of power distribution, from DC source to silicon, in most designs today we need different valued capacitors. At low frequencies we start with bulk capacitors with the highest capacitance value, but those having large inductance, we need to add medium and high frequency capacitors on the board. As we move into the package, there could be bypass capacitors in the package, finally the highest frequency bypassing is served by capacitance on the silicon. As we go from DC source to silicon, typically each subsequent capacitor bank has lower capacitance, but also lower inductance as seen from the silicon. At low frequencies all of these capacitances appear in parallel and the limit is really what the DC source can handle. Others pointed out ESR, and either too low or too high ESR may cause problems, dependent on what the DC source was designed for. Also with too much capacitance the DC source may not start properly or not at all. Beyond these limits on total capacitance, usually more is better, at least electrically, if we do not consider cost and size. In each bank, if you make the capacitance bigger, you can afford more inductance in the next lower-frequency bank, making that bank easier to implement and more cost effective. The full design has to balance the entire chain and find a solution, which meets the electrical requirements and at the same time comes at the lowest cost (or size, or whatever other design constraints you may have). Regards, Istvan Novak Oracle On 3/11/2012 1:53 AM, Aaditya Kandibanda wrote: > Hello Everyone, > I have a doubt on bypass capacitors, will there be any specific limit to > the capacitance I can use for bypassing? what if my bypass capacitance is > very large value? will it be okay? > > Thank you in advance, > Aaditya > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List forum is accessible at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List forum is accessible at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu