How to Make Your PCB Design Look Better -1

Many people think that the work of PCB design is very boring. Every day, thousands of wires are routed to the board, various packages, and the work of pulling wires is repeated. However, designers have to make trade-offs between various design rules, taking into account performance, cost, craftsmanship and other aspects, and also pay attention to the reasonable and neat layout of the board. It is not as simple as it seems and requires more wisdom. Let’s talk about how to develop some good working habits when designing, which will make your design more reasonable, easier to produce, and better performance.

(1) Draw The Schematic Diagram

Many engineers think that the layout work is more important. The schematic diagram is to generate a netlist to facilitate PCB inspection. In fact, the role of the schematic diagram will be greater in the subsequent circuit debugging process. Whether it is to find problems or communicate with colleagues, or the schematic diagram is more intuitive and convenient. In addition, develop the habit of labeling in the schematic diagram, and mark the problems that you should pay attention to during the layout of each part of the circuit on the schematic diagram, which is a good reminder for yourself or for others. Hierarchical schematic diagram, divide the circuit of different functions and different modules into different pages, so that whether it is to read the diagram or reuse it in the future, the workload can be significantly reduced. Using a mature design is always less risky than designing a new circuit. Every time I see all the circuits on a drawing, a densely packed device, it is such a trouble.

(2) Learn to Set Rules

In fact, not only advanced PCB design software needs to set wiring rules, some simple and easy-to-use PCB tools can also set rules. After all, the human brain is not a machine, so it is inevitable that there will be negligence and mistakes. So set some easily overlooked problems into the rules, let the computer help us to check, try to avoid making some low-level mistakes. In addition, the perfect rule setting can better regulate the subsequent work. The so-called sharpening of the knife does not accidentally chop wood, the more complex the scale of the board, the more important the rule setting becomes. Nowadays, many EDA tools have automatic wiring function. If the rules are set in sufficient detail, let the tools design it for you. Wouldn’t it be more pleasant for you to have a cup of coffee by the side?

(3) Properly Lay Out The Circuit

After the impatient engineer finished drawing the schematic and imported the netlist into the PCB, he couldn’t wait to put the device in place and start pulling the wire. In fact, a good PCB layout can make your wire-drawing work easier and make your PCB work better. Each board will have a signal path, and the PCB layout should follow this signal path as much as possible, so that the signal can be transmitted smoothly on the board. People don’t like to walk through the maze, and the signal is the same. If the schematic diagram is designed according to the module, the PCB is the same. According to different functional modules, the board can be divided into several areas. Separate analog and digital, separate power supply signals, separate heating devices and susceptible devices, do not place larger devices too close to the edge of the board, pay attention to the shielding of radio frequency signals, etc…. Spend a little more time to optimize the PCB layout, you can save more time when pulling the string.