Funny how a lot of the designs I work on are often very sensitive analogue, analogue/digital rf all work perfectly on FR4, including boards for near space and spaceflight...again laminated have changed greatly in recent years, for numerous reasons the main instigators being the elevated temperatures required for lead free soldering and the ever increasing rise time of digital signals. There are also different types of FR4 with numerous weave patterns, glass content etc etc. No nee3d to use fancy laminates unless you really have to, there will be no difference signal wise, just increased material cost and more problematic board builds.
Of course it sound more "Audiophile" if you use a Teflon dielectric, one of the worse materials for building a board from, lamination is a pain as is registration for inner layers.....
Green, easier to inspect and work with. Studies have shown that for numerous reasons green PCBs are much better for the production environment, reducing operator fatigue and improving throughput.
Our eyes are good at processing green, we can see more detail and the eyes do not tire as quickly.
Sound wise there are some who claim to hear differences!
Join the IPC there are hundreds of specs and instructions on this...
You could even look at things like the IPC-610 and class 3 assemblies...
Or I have both NASAs and ESA's guides to PCB design, manufacture and assembly (I believe they are available on the WEB) maybe these may be good enough for audio layouts!
The attached text file lists the basic IPC specifications relating to all aspects of PCB design, manufacture and assembly...they are used by ALL PCB manufacturers in the world and as a reference for most PCB design work, fabrication and assembly, so you don't have to re-invent the wheel or discover things that are all ready known, just follow the industries standards and guides.
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Saturn PCB Design - PCB Via Current | PCB Trace Width | Differential Pair Calculator | PCB Impedance
A nice little calculator to play with.
A nice little calculator to play with.
Can you show any measurements showing this to be of significance to audio circuits (as opposed to the sort of ultra-high impedance measurement circuits that PTFE boards were created for)? The only exception I could think of would be at a condenser mike capsule, but that's usually air dielectric anyway.
As long as you colour coordinate with the marker you use on the side of your cd's, you should be fine
Next they will be telling us 90 deg corners on PCBs are bad!!!
Just a thought, what TOLERANCE capacitors and resistors do you use for your analogue sections...just thinking cos I am laying out an analogue/digital board where ALL the resistors are 0.1% or better, they are using MLCCs as well in the sensitive analogue and this is on FR4.
Of course layout is very important, minimising feedback loop areas, short traces to high impedance inputs etc. etc. But....
Just a thought, what TOLERANCE capacitors and resistors do you use for your analogue sections...just thinking cos I am laying out an analogue/digital board where ALL the resistors are 0.1% or better, they are using MLCCs as well in the sensitive analogue and this is on FR4.
Of course layout is very important, minimising feedback loop areas, short traces to high impedance inputs etc. etc. But....
The other politically correct factor being of course that green boards are, ehh, green.
Save humanity with green PCBs!
Jan
A lot of research was done before being green meant something other than a bad pint and a dodgy curry
30 years ago (when I was but a lad) PCBs were not as good as they are now, with outgassing of PTH holes, warping etc. But that was years ago so there is no point referencing a lot of issues that have been ironed out, soldering has changed greatly and things move on. Oh and there are surface mount components as well.
Even Gerber's have been superseded by a much better format (and another one slowly gaining popularity).
30 years ago (when I was but a lad) PCBs were not as good as they are now, with outgassing of PTH holes, warping etc. But that was years ago so there is no point referencing a lot of issues that have been ironed out, soldering has changed greatly and things move on. Oh and there are surface mount components as well.
Even Gerber's have been superseded by a much better format (and another one slowly gaining popularity).
The fastest electrons with poor breaks will run out of the track or, worse, spin round.
I just ordered 8-.005% resistors for a work project, they billed me back >$900 ! There going onto an ordinary PCBexpress two layer board, I'm afraid it is unintentional overkill.
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Marce, my dear fellow, you are only 40 years too late with 90 degree angles.
Sometime in the mid-70ies, I read in a magazine (don't remember which, I read many at the time), a guy said exactly that, for sweet and natural sound, we should never, ever use 90 degree angles, but rather gentle slopes, presumably to prevent electrons from skidding off the right path to audiophile nirvana.
It takes all kinds. But appearently, some took this seriously. Just look at the artwork of Crown (Amcron) amps of the day, not a single 90 degree angle anywhere in sight, ditto for Sansui and probaby quite a few others.
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