Microwave Tech - Ten tricks to get the PCB high-frequency circuit wiring effective

Ten tricks to get the PCB high-frequency circuit wiring effective

If the frequency of the digital logic circuit reaches or exceeds 45MHZ~50MHZ, and the circuit working above this frequency has taken up a certain share of the entire electronic system (for example, 1/3), it is usually called a high-frequency circuit.High-frequency circuit board design is a very complicated design process, and its wiring is very important to the entire design!

The first trick multilayer board wiring

High-frequency circuits tend to have high integration and high wiring density. The use of multi-layer boards is not only necessary for wiring, but also an effective means to reduce interference. In the PCB Layout stage, a reasonable selection of the printed board size with a certain number of layers can make full use of the intermediate layer to set up the shield, better realize the nearest grounding, and effectively reduce the parasitic inductance and shorten the signal transmission length, while still maintaining a large All of these methods are beneficial to the reliability of high-frequency circuits, such as the amplitude reduction of signal cross-interference.

Some data show that when the same material is used, the noise of the four-layer board is 20dB lower than that of the double-sided board. However, there is also a problem. The higher the number of PCB half-layers, the more complex the manufacturing process, and the higher the unit cost. This requires us to select PCB boards with the appropriate number of layers when performing PCB Layout. Reasonable component layout planning, and use correct wiring rules to complete the design.

The second trick is to use more high-speed electronic device pins as the lead bends as little as possible.

The lead wire of high-frequency circuit wiring is best to adopt a full straight line, which needs to be turned. It can be turned by a 45-degree broken line or a circular arc. This requirement is only used to improve the fixing strength of the copper foil in low-frequency circuits, while in high-frequency circuits, this requirement is met. One requirement can reduce the external emission and mutual coupling of high-frequency signals.

The third trick is that the lead between the pins of the high-frequency circuit device is as short as possible

The radiation intensity of the signal is proportional to the trace length of the signal line. The longer the high-frequency signal lead, the easier it is to couple to the components close to it. Therefore, for signals such as clock, crystal oscillator, DDR data, LVDS lines, USB lines, HDMI lines and other high-frequency signal lines are required to be as short as possible.

The fourth trick is that the number of lead layers between the pins of high-frequency circuit devices is as small as possible.

The so-called "the less the inter-layer alternation of the leads, the better" means that the fewer vias (Via) used in the component connection process, the better. According to the side, one via can bring about 0.5pF distributed capacitance, and reducing the number of vias can significantly increase the speed and reduce the possibility of data errors.

The fifth trick is to pay attention to the "crosstalk" introduced by the signal lines in close parallel routing

High-frequency circuit wiring should pay attention to the "crosstalk" introduced by the close parallel routing of signal lines. Crosstalk refers to the coupling phenomenon between signal lines that are not directly connected. Since high-frequency signals are transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves along the transmission line, the signal line will act as an antenna, and the energy of the electromagnetic field will be emitted around the transmission line. Undesirable noise signals are generated due to the mutual coupling of electromagnetic fields between the signals. Called crosstalk (Crosstalk). The parameters of the PCB layer, the spacing of the signal lines, the electrical characteristics of the driving end and the receiving end, and the signal line termination method all have a certain impact on the crosstalk. Therefore, in order to reduce the crosstalk of high-frequency signals, it is required to do the following as much as possible when wiring:

If the wiring space permits, inserting a ground wire or ground plane between the two wires with more serious crosstalk can play a role in isolation and reduce crosstalk.

When there is a time-varying electromagnetic field in the space surrounding the signal line, if parallel distribution cannot be avoided, a large area of "ground" can be arranged on the opposite side of the parallel signal line to greatly reduce interference.

Under the premise that the wiring space permits, increase the spacing between adjacent signal lines, reduce the parallel length of the signal lines, and try to make the clock line perpendicular to the key signal line instead of parallel.

If parallel wiring in the same layer is almost unavoidable, in two adjacent layers, the directions of the wiring must be perpendicular to each other.

In digital circuits, the usual clock signals are signals with fast edge changes and high external crosstalk. Therefore, in the design, the clock line should be surrounded by a ground line and punched more ground line holes to reduce distributed capacitance, thereby reducing crosstalk.

For high-frequency signal clocks, try to use low-voltage differential clock signals and wrap the ground mode, and pay attention to the integrity of the package ground punching.

The unused input terminal should not be suspended, but grounded or connected to the power supply (the power supply is also grounded in the high-frequency signal loop), because the suspended line may be equivalent to the transmitting antenna, and the grounding can inhibit the emission. Practice has proved that using this method to eliminate crosstalk can sometimes yield immediate results.

The sixth trick is to add high-frequency decoupling capacitors to the power pins of the integrated circuit block

Add a high-frequency decoupling capacitor to the power supply pin of each integrated circuit block nearby. Increasing the high-frequency decoupling capacitor of the power supply pin can effectively suppress the interference caused by the high-frequency harmonics on the power supply pin.

The seventh trick is to isolate the ground wire of the high-frequency digital signal from the ground wire of the analog signal

When the analog ground wire, digital ground wire, etc. are connected to the public ground wire, use high-frequency choke magnetic beads to connect or directly isolate and select a suitable place for single-point interconnection. The ground potential of the ground wire of the high-frequency digital signal is generally inconsistent. There is often a certain voltage difference between the two directly. Moreover, the ground wire of the high-frequency digital signal often contains very rich harmonic components of the high-frequency signal. When the digital signal ground wire and the analog signal ground wire are directly connected, the harmonics of the high-frequency signal will interfere with the analog signal through the ground wire coupling. Therefore, under normal circumstances, the ground wire of the high-frequency digital signal and the ground wire of the analog signal are to be isolated, and a single-point interconnection method can be used at a suitable position, or a method of high-frequency choke magnetic bead interconnection can be used.

The eighth trick to avoid loops formed by routing

All kinds of high-frequency signal traces should not form a loop as much as possible. If it is unavoidable, the loop area should be as small as possible.

The ninth trick must ensure good signal impedance matching

In the process of signal transmission, when the impedance does not match, the signal will be reflected in the transmission channel, and the reflection will cause the synthesized signal to form an overshoot, causing the signal to fluctuate near the logic threshold.

The fundamental way to eliminate reflection is to match the impedance of the transmission signal well. Since the greater the difference between the load impedance and the characteristic impedance of the transmission line, the greater the reflection, so the characteristic impedance of the signal transmission line should be made equal to the load impedance as much as possible. At the same time, please note that the transmission line on the PCB cannot have sudden changes or corners, and try to keep the impedance of each point of the transmission line continuous, otherwise there will be reflections between the various sections of the transmission line. This requires that during high-speed PCB wiring, the following wiring rules must be observed:

USB wiring rules. The USB signal differential routing is required, the line width is 10mil, the line spacing is 6mil, and the ground line and signal line spacing is 6mil.

HDMI wiring rules. The HDMI signal differential routing is required, the line width is 10mil, the line spacing is 6mil, and the spacing between each two sets of HDMI differential signal pairs exceeds 20mil.

LVDS wiring rules. Requires LVDS signal differential routing, line width 7mil, line spacing 6mil, the purpose is to control the differential signal impedance of HDMI to 100+-15% ohm

DDR wiring rules. DDR1 traces require signals not to go through holes as much as possible, signal lines are of equal width, and lines are equally spaced. The traces must meet the 2W principle to reduce crosstalk between signals. For high-speed devices of DDR2 and above, high-frequency data is also required. The lines are equal in length to ensure the impedance matching of the signal.

Tenth trick to maintain the integrity of signal transmission

Maintain the integrity of signal transmission and prevent the "ground bounce phenomenon" caused by ground splitting.