PCB design translates electrical schematics into a functional product, and its quality directly impacts production efficiency and product reliability. For beginners, mastering PCB layout can be challenging despite familiarity with design software, and common issues often arise. Here, seasoned engineers from KKPCB share their PCB layout insights to help avoid these pitfalls and inspire best practices.
By following these guidelines—such as optimizing trace width, minimizing via use, and ensuring proper documentation for manufacturing—you can significantly improve the performance, reliability, and manufacturability of your PCB designs.
PCB design involves two critical stages: component layout and circuit connection wiring. The layout is the arrangement of circuit components within the PCB’s wiring area. A well-thought-out layout directly affects the ease of subsequent wiring and significantly impacts the PCB’s overall performance. In addition to meeting circuit functionality and performance requirements, a good layout considers manufacturability, inspection, and maintenance. Components should be placed evenly, neatly, and compactly, ensuring that leads and connections are short, minimizing interference and signal transmission delays.
It is generally recommended to use the method of automatic routing + manual adjustment. Automatic routing requires routing in the order of ground line – power line – clock line – others. Set the routing priority in the routing rules, 0 is the lowest level, 100 is the highest level, and there are 101 situations in total. In more complex circuit boards, considering the requirements of electrical characteristics, interference and other factors, we all use manual routing. It is forbidden to place vias on the pins of components, and the already routed lines should be locked before automatic routing. The routing should take into account both aesthetics and electrical characteristics. In particular, the routing that affects the appearance should be routed on the reverse side. In principle, do not route the front side of the product name, model and Zhongyou logo (except in special cases), and do not allow front routing between the silk screen frame and the Keepout frame (except in special cases).
HDI PCBs have a higher density per unit circuit than traditional PCBs. They use a combination of buried and blind vias and microvias (0.006 inches in diameter or less). A high-density board is a PCB that has one or more of the following features:
With HDI boards, you can affix more components on both sides of the bare PCB, allowing you to get more functionality in a smaller space and expand the overall functionality of your device. HDI technology enables you to add functionality while reducing the size and weight of your product.
With the rapid development of electronic technology and the widespread application of wireless communication technology in various fields, high frequency, high speed and high density have gradually become one of the significant development trends of modern electronic products. The high frequency and high speed digitalization of signal transmission force PCB to move towards micro-holes and buried/blind holes, fine wires, and uniform thin dielectric layers. High-frequency, high-speed, high-density multi-layer PCB design technology has become an important research field. This time, we mainly want to learn some practical skills in high-frequency PCB design.
This article mainly focuses on the concepts and design principles of microwave-grade high-frequency circuits/microwave circuits and high-frequency PCB design in a cutting-edge field of communication products
PCB is also known as printed circuit board, which can realize the line connection and function realization between electronic components, and is also an important part of power circuit design. Today, we will introduce the high-frequency PCB circuit wiring skills in PCB design.
Excellent layer stacking is the key to ensure bypass and decoupling of the power bus, minimize transient voltage on the power layer or ground layer, and shield the electromagnetic field of the signal and power supply.