9.2.2.3 Input Capacitor

Multilayer ceramic capacitors are an excellent choice for input decoupling of the step-up converter as they have extremely low ESR and are available in small footprints. Input capacitors should be located as close as possible to the device. While a 10μF input capacitor is sufficient for most applications, larger values may be used to reduce input current ripple without limitations.

Take care when using only ceramic input capacitors. When a ceramic capacitor is used at the input and the power is being supplied through long wires, such as from a wall adapter, a load step at the output can induce ringing at the VIN pin. This ringing can couple to the output and be mistaken as loop instability or could even damage the part. Additional "bulk" capacitance (electrolytic or tantalum) should in this circumstance be placed between C_I and the power source lead to reduce ringing than can occur between the inductance of the power source leads and C_I.