Ralph Doncaster writes:
In virtually all of my micro-controller projects, I’ll use 0.1uF ceramic capacitors between Vcc and Gnd. Depending on the power draw of the MCU and inductance on the power lines, they may not be necessary, at a cost of a penny or less each there’s little reason not to use them.
I remembered seeing CPUs that have on-chip decoupling capacitors, and thought it would be nice if the MCUs I’m using had the same. When working with small projects on mini breadboards, not having to find space for the decoupling cap would be convenient. It would also save me the trouble of digging through my disorganized collection of components looking for that extra capacitor.
Once, way back in the 80’s there was a proposal for capacitors that would fit directly on top of 14-pin (and 16-pin) DIL TTL / CMOS logic chips. Maybe it’s time to recycle the idea, for smaller microcontrollers.
Good luck getting one for BGA chips.
There were DIP sockets with integrated bypass caps. For example, see
http://www.surplus-electronics-sales.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1062
I still use those 14 and 16 pin caps under TTL. I don’t have them for surface mount stuff so I do it almost like above except I solder the cap to one leg directly, that way I only need one wire across the top.
I used surface mount components and constructed the circuit needed for a 5-5-5 timer on top of the IC itself. This was for a first year Digital Class, proff didn’t like it, thought it would be too hard to troubleshoot.