PCB News - Some personal views on PCB design

Many people say that PCB design is an art. This sentence is not wrong, but it is not a pure art for people to appreciate, but a practical art that combines electronic science. Electrical performance is always the most important pursuit of PCB design and the primary goal. You must not give up electrical performance for the sake of neatness and beauty. But having said that, PCBs with the best electrical performance are generally beautiful.

The key to designing a high-quality PCB board is to master the principle of the circuit. It is difficult for people who cannot understand the schematic to design a high-performance PCB. Even if you have mastered some basic rules of PCB design, but cannot understand the schematic diagram, the characteristics of the signal, and the relationship between the signals, there is no way to apply these principles reasonably and flexibly, let alone provide a reasonable and efficient Constrained conditions, there is no way to design a good PCB. Don't just learn PCB for the sake of learning PCB. The fundamental thing is to improve your skills in all aspects of electronic technology. The most basic thing is to understand the characteristics of digital circuits and analog circuits, to understand the differences between the two and the different processing methods on the PCB, how to move analog signals, how to deal with analog signals, and how to deal with digital signals. Go, how to deal with the digital signal and so on. It is also necessary to understand the concepts and signal characteristics of some long-used buses. The simplest example, only by understanding the difference between serial buses and parallel buses, can we better do the best for serial and parallel signals on the PCB. Processing, only by understanding the characteristics of differential signals, can we better route the differential signals such as USB, SATA, HDMI and so on. There is also an understanding of the principle of the entire circuit. Only when you truly master the principle of the circuit can you distinguish between different functional modules and make a reasonable layout. A reasonable layout is the most fundamental guarantee for reasonable wiring.
The decisive factor of PCB quality is the designer, not the software. There are many software to make PCB, and the performance difference is relatively large, but fundamentally, the software is only a tool. Although the design is getting more and more complex and the tools are getting more advanced, the most important factor in PCB designis people. The power of Allegro, partly lies in its layout and simulation of the above algorithms, but the most important part is that it provides users with a complex control interface. Allow users to control the PCB designmore conveniently (by adding constraints). In fact, you can master the interface operation of the software very proficiently, but if you don't master the circuit principle, you won't know how to set constraints. Unlike APR in IC design, in PCB design, the possibility of using automatic placement and routing is still very small, mainly manual routing. Therefore, fundamentally speaking, no matter how advanced the software automatic placement and routing algorithm is, there is no manual routing. Too much meaning. What different software provides us is only the difference in the characteristics of use, the difference in the use occasion, and this difference does not determine the performance of the designed PCB in PCB manufacturers.
So in general, I think the key to learning PCB design lies in learning and mastering electronic technology, which is fundamental. As for the PCB software, find a software that is easy to use, fits your own habits, and fits the characteristics of the PCB you designed. There is no need to choose the most complex and powerful one, it will only become your learning Of cumbersome.