Decoupling capacitor
capacitor used to decouple one part of an electrical circuit from another
In electronics, a decoupling capacitor is a capacitor used to decouple (i.e. prevent electrical energy from transferring to) one part of a circuit from another. Noise caused by other circuit elements is shunted through the capacitor, reducing its effect on the rest of the circuit. For higher frequencies, an alternative name is bypass capacitor as it is used to bypass the power supply or other high-impedance component of a circuit.
Discussion
Active devices of an electronic system (e.g. transistors, integrated circuits, vacuum tubes) are connected to their power supplies through conductors with finite resistance and inductance. If the current drawn by an active device changes, the voltage drop from the power supply to the device will also change due to these impedances. If several active devices share a common path to the power supply, changes in the current drawn by one element may produce voltage changes large enough to affect the operation of others – voltage spikes or ground bounce, for example – so the change of state of one device is coupled to others through the common impedance to the power supply. A decoupling capacitor provides a bypass path for transient currents, instead of flowing through the common impedance.
The decoupling capacitor works as the device’s local energy storage.
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