Sorry if this seems like a silly question but I am curious about how other people deal with this.

I've started experimenting with some ICs with a larger number of pins (14-16) and often the Voltage In and Ground pins that I want to put a 0.1uf bypass capacitor across are too far apart for the leads to reach.

Should I solder a wire to the capacitor leads so they reach, or can I get the same result by adding a second capacitor and having one just before the IC Voltage In and the second just after the Ground pin?

Thanks for reading!

 

Are you doing it on a PCB design, solderless breadboard, solderable perfboard, solderable prototype board, or other?

 

Either way will work. If on a solderless breadboard I would be more concerned about parasitics in the breadboard itself than the capacitor leads

 

Are you doing it on a PCB design, solderless breadboard, solderable perfboard, solderable prototype board, or other?

Solderable prototype board.

 

In that case I would solder the capacitors to two adjacent pads then run wires to the IC pins from those pads.

 

Either way will work. If on a solderless breadboard I would be more concerned about parasitics in the breadboard itself than the capacitor leads

Thanks very much!

 

Then connect to the ground buss connections.

 

Depends.

If you are doing a PCB layout, you would run the power rails such that your capacitor leads will fit nicely.
For DIP logic ICs, I run signal traces on the top side and Vcc and GND on the bottom side, running parallel in between the left and right rows of IC pins.




If you are building a DIY hobby project on perfboard, then you do what you have to do.
Use through hole ceramic capacitors with long leads and install the cap with the shortest leads to Vcc and GND pins of the IC you want to decouple.

 

If you are building a DIY hobby project on perfboard, then you do what you have to do.

It's this one, I'm a beginner - PCB layout is a long way off. Thank you for your insights!