3 ms·

Seems like it says more about the writer's hiring pool. I can't think of one junior EE I've interacted with who couldn't have told you what decoupling caps wer

• bsder 7y ago
  > Sizing them correctly Explain please? Yes, there are some considerations when you're dealing with RF, but a modern 0402 0.1uF cap works pretty much everywhere because it has such a great frequency response due to its small size. Now, explaining to people that their 10uF 6VDC 0402 across the power rails probably doesn't have as much capacitance as a 2.2uF 15VDC 0402 is a little subtle. It is also an issue that decoupling caps can hold too much energy and keep a power domain operating when you wanted it shut down. That makes for some interesting debugging. Power domains now require discharge circuits because IC's use so little power.
• detaro 7y ago
  There's also a difference between "can tell you what decoupling caps are for" and "when given a circuit will call them out as missing", especially in an interview situation. (Parallels probably apply to software interviews: under stress it's easier for many to answer "define X" than to identify how/if to apply X when not prompted for it)
• rasz 7y ago
  I know few who never touched soldering iron.