Routing thick high current traces to small SMD pads?

Question

What is the best practice for routing high current traces through the pads of small 0603 components?

I have a wide high current trace which that passes through a 0603 decoupling capacitor.

Initially I kept the thickness high(like below) but someone suggested that due to lack of thermal reliefs this would make the component difficult to solder or prone to tombstoning.

Do I instead take a thick trace as close to the pad as possible and then jump with a thinner trace like below?

What impact would this have on the current carrying capabilities? What is the best practice in this case?

This is a 2 layer board.

Answer 1

Your last image is the best. The capacitors do not see the high current in a fat trace, only the noise they are supposed to suppress. Keep the capacitors close to the wide traces but have very short stubs come off it to connect to small SMD parts.

Use many bypass capacitors where room allows it so total ESR for a given trace is small, and smd caps are cheap. Many IC manufactures show this in examples of their products as a board layout.

As The Photon commented below the smallest value capacitor (and normally the smallest size) should be right at the IC power ground pins. Within 5mm if possible. Then higher value SMD capacitors can be 12mm away from the IC and the "can shaped" electrolytics can be inches away. Capacitors over 100uF should be at the supply source, usually a connector and maybe some point-of-use linear regulators.

The ground plane or vias to the ground plane need to be very close as well. If ground return topside needs vias to another ground plane layer use a stitching pattern of many vias to keep ESR as low as possible.

As usual avoid 90\$^o\$ turns in favor of smooth 45\$^o\$ turns as I see you are.

Answer 2

I'd try re-arranging the placement of the capacitors to avoid the issue all together. Also, this would give you the chance to move the smaller-packaged capacitor closer to the pin, where its lower parasitic inductance will provide some benefit. Having it placed further away likely means the track inductance between it and the IC pin overwhelm its inherent inductance and eliminate any advantage you might have got by using the smaller package.

Then, if it is still difficult to connect to the capacitors with the track size you want, use a polygon area around the pin to give a low-inductance path from the IC pin to both the capacitors and the tracks connecting it to the supply.