Multilayer ceramic capacitors are an excellent choice for the input decoupling of the step-up converter since they have extremely low ESR and are available in small footprints. Input capacitors must be located as close as possible to the device. While a 22-μF input capacitor or equivalent is sufficient for the most applications, larger values can be used to reduce input current ripple.

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 can even damage the device. Additional "bulk" capacitance (electrolytic or tantalum) in this circumstance, must be placed between C_IN and the power source lead to reduce ringing that can occur between the inductance of the power source leads and C_IN.