The new chip is designed to be stable using low equivalent series resistance (ESR) ceramic capacitors at the input and output. Multilayer ceramic capacitors have become the industry standard for these types of applications and are recommended, but must be used with good judgment. Ceramic capacitors that employ X7R-, X5R-, and C0G-rated dielectric materials provide relatively good capacitive stability across temperature, whereas using Y5V-rated capacitors is discouraged because of large variations in capacitance.

Maximum supported ESR range across complete temperature (−40°C to +125°C) and load current range (0mA - 50mA) is less than 1Ω. For existing board implementations that use capacitors with higher ESR (for example: tantalum), place a low ESR MLCC capacitor with a value of 100nF as close as possible to the output (V_OUT) pin of the LP2980-N.

Regardless of the ceramic capacitor type selected, the effective capacitance varies with operating voltage and temperature. Generally, expect the effective capacitance to decrease by as much as 50%. The output capacitors listed in the Recommended Operating Conditions table account for an effective capacitance of approximately 50% of the nominal value.