Application Guide Snubber Capacitors Snubbers are any of several simple energy absorbing circuits used to eliminate voltage spikes caused by circuit inductance when a switch — either mechanical or semi-conductor—opens. The object of the snubber is to eliminate the voltage transient and ringing that occurs when the switch opens by providing an alternate path for the current flowing through the circuit’s intrinsic leakage inductance. Snubbers in switchmode power supplies provideone or more of these three valuable functions: