Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Power Supply Noise Decoupling Strategies on Single-Sided Printed Circuit Boards

In the high-volume and low manufacturing budget automotive world, printed circuit boards are designed without the use of a dedicated power or ground plane. Decoupling capacitors on single-sided printed circuit boards are connected between Vcc and return traces. In this paper, we evaluate a number of practical decoupling capacitor mounting strategies for these single-sided printed circuit boards used in the design of automotive control modules. The partial element equivalent circuit numerical modeling technique is used to validate measured data and to explore additional design options.