What you always wanted to know on layouts...and now....you do!

[Stefanoo]

Hi everybody,

as the title of the 3d suggests this post has the purpose of creating a reference post for who designs layouts including lots of rule of thumbs and practical advice.
As we know how layouts affect the final performance of whatever circuit, therefore good rules to create well working circuits would be nice to have.

I will, of course, throw in the post whatever i know on layout design (which is not so much at all!).
I will obviously need the partecipation of as many members as possible.

Let's start then..and hope this will be a long and up-building 3d....


From my view point, when creating a board good rule of thumbs are:

1- having the dimensions of the parts expressed in mils and size of the holes in mm

2- signal path as short as possible

3- sharp corners are not the best, better a 45deg corner or rounded one

4-avoid to run two close parallel tracks for too long

5-keep the low voltage tracks as away as possible from the higher voltage tracks

6- need of a good ground plane
a possible strategy would be to divide the circuit in main blocks and category depending upon the current level of the block in exam and route each block separately.

7- the ground path/returning path should be as much long as the relative signal path

8- all the grounds should lead to just one point on the board so called "star point"

9-if we are routing a mixed signal circuit it's good to have a separate ground for the analog circuit and digital

that's it for now.

Hope this will be a good start.
Feel free to correct/add other ideas.