PCB News - The essence of PCB design technology questions and answers

Precautions on the choice of hybrid circuit PCB material and wiring

Question: In today's wireless communication equipment, the radio frequency part often adopts a miniaturized outdoor unit structure, while the radio frequency part, the intermediate frequency part of the outdoor unit, and the low frequency circuit part that monitors the outdoor unit are often deployed on the same PCB. Excuse me, what are the material requirements for such PCB wiring? How to prevent the interference between RF, IF and low frequency circuits?

Answer: Hybrid circuit design is a big problem, and it is difficult to have a perfect solution. Generally, the radio frequency circuit is arranged and wired as an independent single board in the system, and there is even a special shielded cavity. Moreover, the radio frequency circuit is generally single-sided or double-sided, and the circuit is relatively simple, all of which are used to reduce the influence on the distribution parameters of the radio frequency circuit and improve the consistency of the radio frequency system. Compared with general FR4 materials, RF circuit boards tend to use high-Q substrates. This material has a relatively small dielectric constant, a small transmission line distributed capacitance, high impedance, and small signal transmission delay.

In hybrid circuit design, although radio frequency and digital circuits are built on the same PCB, they are generally divided into radio frequency circuit area and digital circuit area, and they are laid out and routed separately. Use grounding via tape and shielding box to shield between them.

Regarding input and output termination methods and rules

Question: In modern high-speed PCB design, in order to ensure the integrity of the signal, it is often necessary to terminate the input or output of the device. What are the termination methods? What factors determine the termination method? What are the rules?

Answer: Terminal, also called matching. Generally, it is divided into active end matching and terminal matching according to the matching position. The source terminal matching is generally resistance series matching, and the terminal matching is generally parallel matching. There are many ways, including resistance pull-up, resistance pull-down, Thevenin matching, AC matching, and Schottky diode matching. The matching method is generally determined by the BUFFER characteristics, topological conditions, level types and judgment methods, and the signal duty cycle, system power consumption, etc. should also be considered. The most critical aspect of the digital circuit is the timing issue. The purpose of adding matching is to improve the signal quality and obtain a determinable signal at the moment of decision. For level-valid signals, the signal quality is stable under the premise of ensuring the setup and hold time; for the valid signals, the signal change delay speed meets the requirements under the premise of ensuring the monotonicity of the signal delay.

What problems should be paid attention to when dealing with wiring density?

Question: When the size of the circuit board is fixed, if the design needs to accommodate more functions, it is often necessary to increase the trace density of the PCB, but this may increase the mutual interference of the traces, and at the same time, the impedance of the traces is too thin Can't be lowered, what are the skills in high-speed (>100MHz) high-density PCB design?

Answer: When designing high-speed and high-density PCBs, crosstalk interference (crosstalk interference) really needs special attention, because it has a great impact on timing and signal integrity. Here are a few points for attention: 1. Control the continuity and matching of the characteristic impedance of the trace. 2. The size of the trace spacing. The commonly seen spacing is twice the line width. It is possible to know the influence of trace spacing on timing and signal integrity through simulation, and find the minimum tolerable spacing. The result of different chip signals may be different. 3. Choose the appropriate termination method. 4. Avoid two adjacent layers with the same wiring direction, even if the wiring overlaps up and down, because this kind of crosstalk is larger than that of adjacent wiring on the same layer. 5. Use blind/buried vias to increase the trace area. However, the manufacturing cost of the PCB board will increase. It is indeed difficult to achieve complete parallelism and equal length in actual implementation, but it is still necessary to do it as much as possible. In addition, differential termination and common mode termination can be reserved to alleviate the impact on timing and signal integrity.