10.1 Layout Guidelines

Use good high-frequency printed circuit board (PCB) layout techniques for the OPAx354-Q1 family of devices. Generous use of ground planes, short and direct signal traces, and a suitable bypass capacitor located at the V+ pin ensure clean, stable operation. Large areas of copper provide a means of dissipating heat that is generated in normal operation. Sockets are not recommended for use with any high-speed amplifier. A 10-nF ceramic bypass capacitor is the minimum recommended value; adding a 1-μF or larger tantalum capacitor in parallel can be beneficial when driving a low-resistance load. Providing adequate bypass capacitance is essential to achieving very low harmonic and intermodulation distortion.

For best operational performance of the device, use good PCB layout practices, including:

• Noise can propagate into analog circuitry through the power pins of the circuit as a whole and the operational amplifier. Bypass capacitors are used to reduce the coupled noise by providing low-impedance power sources local to the analog circuitry.
  • Connect low-ESR, 0.1-µF ceramic bypass capacitors between each supply pin and ground, placed as close to the device as possible. A single bypass capacitor from V+ to ground is applicable for single-supply applications.
• Separate grounding for analog and digital portions of the circuitry is one of the simplest and most effective methods of noise suppression. One or more layers on multilayer PCBs are usually devoted to ground planes. A ground plane helps distribute heat and reduces EMI noise pickup. Make sure to physically separate digital and analog grounds, paying attention to the flow of the ground current. For more detailed information, see Circuit Board Layout Techniques.
• To reduce parasitic coupling, run the input traces as far away from the supply or output traces as possible. If these traces cannot be kept separate, crossing the sensitive trace perpendicularly is much better than crossing in parallel with the noisy trace.
• Place the external components as close to the device as possible. Keeping RF and RG close to the inverting input minimizes parasitic capacitance, as shown in Figure 44.
• Keep the length of input traces as short as possible. Always remember that the input traces are the most sensitive part of the circuit.
• Consider a driven, low-impedance guard ring around the critical traces. A guard ring can significantly reduce leakage currents from nearby traces that are at different potentials.