7 Placement and PCB layout considerations

You must place protection devices such as TVS diodes, decoupling capacitors and Schottky diodes physically close to the device they are intended to protect. The distributed inductance limits the bandwidth of the effectiveness of the shunt elements, such as decoupling capacitors and TVS diodes. It restricts the surge current flow and also leads to larger transient voltage spikes during clamping, as shown in Figure 11. Therefore, the layout should be such that these shunt elements have the least series impedance. When routing, use short traces and multiple vias to reduce inductance.