The Answer

Here we have circled the bulk capacitors in blue, and the decoupling capacitors in red. We have also drawn a red line from each decoupling capacitor to the part that it is protecting.

That's a lot of decoupling capacitors.

Notice that this board designer put a decoupling capacitor next to each black chip. This is very good practice. They also put in two bulk capacitors near the power connector; a small one and a large one. This is a good example of how to use capacitors in a design. You should consider this a minimum amount of capacitors in your designs.

Conclusion

In this guide we introduced the capacitor, and talked about its major uses as a bulk power providing device and as a noise decoupler. Now you should look at some circuit boards and see if you can identify the bulk capacitors and the decoupling capacitors. When ever you design a circuit, be sure to put in some bulk capacitors, and be sure every chip has a decoupling capacitor right up next to it.