9.1 Layout Guidelines
When laying out the printed circuit board, the following guideline should be used to ensure proper operation of the IC. These items are also illustrated graphically in the layout diagram of Figure 62.
- There are several signals paths that conduct fast changing currents or voltages that can interact with stray inductance or parasitic capacitance to generate noise or degrade the power supplies performance. To help eliminate these problems, the VIN terminal should be bypassed to ground with a low ESR ceramic bypass capacitor with X5R or X7R dielectric. This capacitor provides the AC current into the internal power MOSFETs. Connect the (+) terminal of the input capacitor as close as possible to the VIN terminal, and Connect the (-) terminal of the input capacitor as close as possible to the PGND terminal. Care should be taken to minimize the loop area formed by the bypass capacitor connections, the VIN terminals, and the power ground PGND connections.
- Since the LX connection is the switching node, the output inductor should be located close to the LX terminal, and the area of the PCB conductor minimized to prevent excessive capacitive coupling. Keep the switching node, LX, away from all sensitive small-signal nodes.
- Connect V7V decoupling capacitor connected close to the IC, between the V7V and the power ground PGND terminal. This capacitor carries the MOSFET drivers’ current peaks.
- Place the output filter capacitor of buck converter close to SW_IN terminals. Try to minimize the ground conductor length while maintaining adequate width.
- AGND terminal should be separately routed to the (-) terminal of V7V bypass capacitor to avoid switching grounding path. A ground plane is recommended connecting to this ground path.
- The compensation should be as close as possible to the COMP terminals. The COMP and ROSC terminals are sensitive to noise so the components associated to these terminals should be located as close as possible to the IC and routed with minimal lengths of trace. Flood all unused areas on all layers with copper. Flooding with copper will reduce the temperature rise of power components. You can connect the copper areas to PGND, AGND, VIN or any other DC rail in your system.
- There is no electric signal internal connected to thermal pad in the device. Nevertheless connect exposed pad beneath the IC to ground. Always solder thermal pad to the board, and have as many vias as possible on the PCB to enhance power dissipation.