PCB Blog - How is a good PCB board made

Everyone knows that making a PCB board is to turn a designed schematic into a real printed circuit board. Please don’t underestimate this process. There are many things that work in principle but are difficult to achieve in engineering, or What others can achieve, others can't, so it is not difficult to make a PCB board, but it is not an easy thing to do a good job of a PCB board. The two major difficulties in the field of microelectronics are the processing of high-frequency signals and weak signals. In this regard, the level of PCB board production is particularly important. The same principle design, the same components, and the PCB boards produced by different people have different characteristics. So how can we make a good PCB board? Based on our past experience, I would like to talk about my views on the following aspects:

1. To clarify the design goals
When receiving a design task, first of all, it is necessary to clarify the design goal, whether it is an ordinary PCB board, a high-frequency PCB board, a small-signal processing PCB board, or a PCB board with both high-frequency and small-signal processing. If it is an ordinary PCB board, As long as the layout and wiring are reasonable and tidy, and the mechanical dimensions are accurate, if there are medium-load lines and long lines, certain methods must be used to reduce the load. When there are more than 40MHz signal lines on the board, special consideration should be given to these signal lines, such as crosstalk between lines. If the frequency is higher, there will be stricter restrictions on the length of the wiring. According to the network theory of distributed parameters, the interaction between high-speed circuits and their wiring is a decisive factor, which cannot be ignored in system design. With the increase of the gate transmission speed, the opposition on the signal line will increase accordingly, and the crosstalk between adjacent signal lines will increase proportionally. Usually, the power consumption and heat dissipation of high-speed circuits are also large. When making high-speed PCB Sufficient attention should be paid to the board. When there are weak signals of millivolt level or even microvolt level on the board, special care is needed for these signal lines. Because the small signal is too weak, it is very easy to be interfered by other strong signals, and shielding measures are often necessary. Greatly reduces the signal-to-noise ratio. As a result, the useful signal is overwhelmed by noise and cannot be extracted effectively. The commissioning of the board should also be considered in the design stage. Factors such as the physical location of the test point and the isolation of the test point cannot be ignored, because some small signals and high-frequency signals cannot be directly added to the probe for measurement. In addition, other related factors should be considered, such as the number of layers of the board, the package shape of the components used, and the mechanical strength of the board. Before making a PCB board, it is necessary to know the design goals of the design.

2. Understand the function of the components used for the layout and wiring requirements
We know that some special components have special requirements for layout and wiring, such as the analog signal amplifiers used in loti and aph. The analog signal amplifiers require stable power supply and small ripple. The analog small signal part should be kept away from the power device as much as possible. On the OTI board, the small signal amplifying part is also specially equipped with a shielding cover to shield the stray electromagnetic interference. The glink chip used on the NTOI board adopts the ECL process, which consumes a lot of power and generates heat. Special consideration must be given to the heat dissipation problem during the layout. If natural heat dissipation is used, the GLINK chip must be placed in a place where the air circulation is relatively smooth., and the heat dissipated can not have a great impact on other chips. If the board is equipped with speakers or other high-power devices, it may cause serious pollution to the power supply, which should also be paid enough attention.

3. Consideration of component layout
One of the first factors to be considered in the layout of components is the electrical performance. The components that are closely related to the wiring should be placed together as much as possible. Especially for some high-speed lines, the layout should be as short as possible. Power signal and small signal devices to separate. On the premise of satisfying the circuit performance, it is also necessary to consider that the components are placed neatly and beautifully, which is convenient for testing. The mechanical size of the board and the location of the socket also need to be carefully considered. Grounding and propagation delay times on interconnects in high-speed systems are also the first considerations in system design. The transmission time on the signal line has a great influence on the overall system speed, especially for high-speed ECL circuits. Although the speed of the integrated circuit block itself is very high, due to the use of ordinary interconnecting lines on the backplane (about 30 cm in length). 2ns delay) increases the delay time, which can greatly reduce the system speed. Synchronous working components such as shift registers and synchronous counters are placed on the same board, because the clock signals to different boards are The transmission delay time is not equal, which may make the shift register master error. If it cannot be placed on one board, the length of the clock lines from the common clock source to each plug-in board must be equal in places where synchronization is critical.

4. The consideration of wiring
With the completion of the design of OTNI and star fiber network, there will be more boards with high-speed signal lines above 100MHz to be designed in the future. Some basic concepts of high-speed lines will be introduced here.
Transmission line: Any "long" signal path on a printed circuit board can be considered a transmission line. If the propagation delay time of the line is much shorter than the signal rise time, any reflections produced during the signal rise will be drowned out. Overshoot, kickback and ringing are no longer present. For most of the current MOS circuits, since the ratio of rise time to line transmission delay time is much larger, traces can be measured in meters without signal distortion. For faster logic circuits, especially ultra-high-speed ECL. For integrated circuits, due to the increase in edge speed, if no other measures are taken, the length of traces must be greatly shortened to maintain signal integrity. There are two ways to make high-speed circuits work on relatively long lines without serious waveform distortion. TTL uses Schottky diode clamping for fast falling edges, so that the overshoot is clamped to one diode drop below ground potential. This reduces the magnitude of the subsequent kickback, the slower rising edge allows overshoot, but it is attenuated by the relatively high output impedance (50-80Ω) of the circuit in the level "H" state . In addition, due to the high immunity of the level "H" state, the recoil problem is not very prominent. For HCT series devices, if the Schottky diode clamping and series resistance termination methods are used, the improvement will be improved. effect will be more obvious. At higher bit rates and faster edge rates, the TTL shaping methods described above are somewhat inadequate when there is fan-out along the signal line. Because of the reflected waves in the line, they will tend to combine at high bit rates, causing severe signal distortion and reduced immunity to interference. Therefore, in order to solve the reflection problem, another method is usually used in the ECL system: the line impedance matching method. In this way reflections can be controlled and signal integrity guaranteed. Strictly speaking, for conventional TTL and CMOS devices with slower edge speeds, transmission lines are not very necessary. For high-speed ECL devices with faster edge speeds, transmission lines are not always necessary. But when using transmission lines, they have the advantage of being able to predict wire delays and control reflections and oscillations through impedance matching.

4.1 There are five basic factors for deciding whether to use a transmission line:
They are: (1) Edge rate of system signal, (2) Wiring distance (3) Capacitive load (how much fan-out), (4) Resistive load (line termination method); (5) Allowable Percent kickback and overshoot (reduction in AC immunity).

4.2. Several types of transmission lines
(1) Coaxial cable and twisted pair: They are often used in the connection between systems. The characteristic impedance of coaxial cable is usually 50Ω and 75Ω, and twisted pair is usually 110Ω.
(2) Microstrip line on the printed circuit board: The microstrip line is a strip conductor (signal line) separated from the ground plane by a dielectric. If the thickness, width, and distance from the ground plane of the line are controllable, its characteristic impedance is also controllable.
(3) Stripline in the printed board: The stripline is a copper stripline placed in the middle of the dielectric between two layers of conductive planes. If the thickness and width of the line, the dielectric constant of the medium, and the distance between the two conductive planes are controllable, then the characteristic impedance of the line is also controllable.

4.3 Terminate the transmission line
When the receiving end of a line is terminated with a resistance equal to the characteristic impedance of the line, the transmission line is called a parallel termination line. It is mainly used for obtaining electrical performance, including driving distributed loads. Sometimes in order to save power consumption, a 104 capacitor is connected in series with the terminating resistor to form an AC termination circuit, which can effectively reduce the DC loss. A resistor is connected in series between the driver and the transmission line, and the end of the line is no longer connected to the terminating resistor. This termination method is called series termination. Overshoot and ringing on longer lines can be controlled with series damping or series termination techniques. Series damping is achieved using a small resistor (usually 10 to 75 Ω) in series with the output of the drive gate. This damping method is suitable for Used in conjunction with lines whose characteristic impedance is controlled (such as backplane wiring, circuit boards without ground planes, and most wire-wraps, etc.). The value of the series resistance and the output impedance of the circuit (drive gate) when terminated in series is equal to the transmission line. Characteristic Impedance. Series-terminated wiring has the disadvantages of only using lumped loads at the termination and long propagation delay times. However, this can be overcome by using redundant series-terminated transmission lines.

4.4 Unterminated transmission line
Transmission lines can be used without series or parallel termination if the line delay time is much shorter than the signal rise time, if the round-trip delay (the time the signal takes to travel back and forth on the transmission line) for an unterminated line is longer than for a pulsed signal If the rise time is short, the kickback due to non-termination is about 15% of the logic swing.

4.5 Comparison of several termination methods
Both parallel terminal wiring and series terminal wiring have their own advantages. Which one to use, or both, depends on the designer's preference and system requirements. The main advantage of parallel termination wiring is the high speed of the system and the complete and distortion-free transmission of the signal on the wire. The load on the long line will neither affect the propagation delay time of the drive gate driving the long line nor its signal edge speed, but will increase the propagation delay time of the signal along the long line. When driving a large fan-out, the load can be distributed along the line through the branch stub instead of the terminal where the load must be lumped together as in the series termination. The series termination method enables the circuit to drive several parallel load lines. The delay time increment caused by the capacitive load in the series termination line is approximately twice that of the corresponding parallel termination line, while the short line has the edge due to the capacitive load. The speed is slowed down and the drive gate delay time is increased, however, the crosstalk of the series-terminated wire is less than that of the parallel-terminated wire, mainly because the amplitude of the signal transmitted along the series-terminated wire is only one-half the logic swing, so The switch current is also only half of the parallel terminated switch current, and the signal energy is small and the crosstalk is small. Whether to choose a double-sided or a multi-layered board when making a PCB board depends on the operating frequency, the complexity of the circuit system and the requirements for assembly density. Choose a multi-layer board when the clock frequency exceeds 200MHZ. If the operating frequency exceeds 350MHz, the printed circuit board with PTFE as the dielectric layer is selected, because its high frequency attenuation is smaller, the parasitic capacitance is smaller, and the transmission speed is faster. To save power consumption, the following principles are required for the wiring of the printed circuit board:
(1) There should be as much space as possible between all parallel signal lines to reduce crosstalk. If there are two signal lines that are close to each other, run a ground wire between the two lines, which can act as a shield.
(2) When designing the signal transmission line, it is necessary to avoid sharp turns to prevent the reflection caused by the sudden change of the characteristic impedance of the transmission line.
(3) The width of the printed line can be calculated according to the characteristic impedance calculation formula of the microstrip line and the strip line. The characteristic impedance of the microstrip line on the printed circuit board is generally between 50 and 120Ω. To get a large characteristic impedance, the line width must be made very narrow. But very thin lines are not easy to make. Considering various factors, it is generally appropriate to choose an impedance value of about 68Ω, because choosing a characteristic impedance of 68Ω can achieve a balance between delay time and power consumption. A 50Ω transmission line will consume more power; a larger impedance can certainly reduce power consumption, but it will increase the transmission delay time. The propagation delay time increases and the characteristic impedance decreases due to the negative line capacitance. However, the intrinsic capacitance per unit length of the line segment with low characteristic impedance is relatively large, so the transmission delay time and characteristic impedance are less affected by the load capacitance. An important feature of a properly terminated transmission line is that branch stubs should have little effect on line delay time. When Z0 is 50Ω. The length of the short branch line must be limited to within 2.5cm. To avoid large ringing.
(4) For double-sided boards (or four-layer lines in six-layer boards). The lines on both sides of the circuit board should be perpendicular to each other to prevent mutual induction and crosstalk.
(5) If there are high-current devices on the printed board, such as relays, indicator lights, speakers, etc., their ground wires should be separated and run separately to reduce the noise on the ground wire. The ground wires of these high-current devices should be connected to A separate ground bus on the plug-in board and backplane, and these separate ground wires should also be connected to the ground point of the entire system.
(6) If there is a small signal amplifier on the board, the weak signal line before amplification should be kept away from the strong signal line, and the trace should be as short as possible, and the PCB board should be shielded with a ground wire if possible.