For best overall performance, place all circuit components on the same side of the circuit board and as near as practical to the respective LDO pin connections. Place ground return connections to the input and output capacitors, and to the LDO ground pin as close as possible to each other, connected by a wide, component-side, copper surface. Using vias and long traces to create LDO circuit connections is strongly discouraged and negatively affects system performance. This grounding and layout scheme minimizes inductive parasitics, and thereby reduces load-current transients, minimizes noise, and increases circuit stability. Use a ground reference plane that is either embedded in the PCB or located on the bottom side of the PCB opposite the components. This reference plane provides accuracy of the output voltage, shields noise, and behaves similar to a thermal plane to spread (or sink) heat from the LDO device. In most applications, this ground plane is necessary to meet thermal requirements.