Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

75%
+4 −0
Q&A ADE7933 layout guidelines - Lazy Y capacitor?

ADE7933 contains an isolated DC-DC converter (Page 82). The control uses ~1MHz PWM signal with unknown rise time, but assuming something like 10ns, most of the energy would be contained in the 35MH...

1 answer  ·  posted 10mo ago by Elleanor Lopez‭  ·  last activity 10mo ago by Nick Alexeev‭

Question safety
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Elleanor Lopez‭ · 2025-11-07T14:32:04Z (10 months ago)
ADE7933 layout guidelines - Lazy Y capacitor?
[ADE7933](https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/ade7978_7933_7932_7923.pdf) contains an isolated DC-DC converter (Page 82). The control uses ~1MHz PWM signal with unknown rise time, but assuming something like 10ns, most of the energy would be contained in the 35MHz band based on:

$f_{\text{max}} \approx \frac{0.35}{t_r} \approx \frac{0.35}{10 \times 10^{-9}} = 35\,\text{MHz}$


Knowing that the winding capacitance can cause common mode noise issues, a 'Y' capacitor is often added between the windings to provide return path for the common mode current back to primary. However, this datasheet suggests to use PCB itself to create the same effect (Page 92):

![Image_alt_text](https://electrical.codidact.com/uploads/0btj1bh2rae51m9aqbpa9a73uvy0)

This seems like a 'lazy' Y capacitor that is heavily dependent on the layout around the board to form this interplanar capacitance between primary and secondary. The value is not possible to tune. It also seems that this has to be extensively documented, since if the stackup was to change, this could introduce a safety risk. What I am wondering is why go through all this, if a discrete component can achieve the same performance? Are there any advantages of this approach besides saving cents on a discrete Y capacitor?