Circuit Board Placement and Routing Basics

The circuit board layout process is similar to schematic capture. The main steps in capturing a schematic are: 1) Generating symbols 2) Placing the symbols 3) Connecting the symbols Circuit board layout is very similar. The main steps are: 1) Generating component footprints 2) Placing footprints (placement) 3) Connecting the footprints (routing)

Placement and Routing Guidelines

An important concept to understand is that different types of circuit boards are usually placed and routed in different ways. We shall consider the following types of circuit boards and provide some useful placement and routing strategies for each

General purpose analog: This type of board contains analog circuitry (such as op
amps and transistors) that operates to only a few megahertz (MHz) of bandwidth. There is usually not much gain, and low noise is not a concern.

General purpose digital: This type of board contains digital circuitry (gates, counters,
and microcontrollers) that operates up to about 20 MHz. There is usually not much critical timing in the design.

High-performance analog: This type of board has analog circuitry that is either
higher bandwidth (like video circuitry), or higher gain (like sensor amplifiers), or lower noise, or larger dynamic range (like A/D and D/A converters) than the general purpose analog circuit board.

High-speed digital: This type of board has digital circuitry that runs above a speed of
20 MHz. There is often critical timing in the design.

Radio frequency (RF): This type of board has special circuitry designed to operate at
very high frequencies (above 20 MHz), and often with very low noise and high

dynamic range requirements. The circuit board itself plays a much larger role in the performance of an RF design.

General Placement Consideration:

There should be at least 30mil between components and 50mil between a component and the edge of circuit board.

Placement and Routing Considerations for High-performance Analog Circuit Boards:

High-performance analog circuit boards contain analog circuitry that is either higher in bandwidth (like video circuitry), higher in gain (like sensor amplifiers), lower in noise, or have larger dynamic range (like A/D and D/A converters) than a generalpurpose analog circuit board. The active devices (op amps and transistors) on a high-performance board tend to have both more gain and operate at higher frequencies. This can yield significant problems if a few guidelines are not followed: Be sure that amplifier outputs and inputs are separated. Be sure that op amp feedback loops are physically small. Place feedback resistors and capacitors as close as possible to the op amp pins. Remember to always put a small capacitor (100-pF ceramic) in parallel with the op amps negative feedback resistor to reduce gain at high frequencies, where oscillations usually happen. If you have a large amount of gain from multiple devices in series, make sure that the output device is far from the input device. If you have a large amount of gain from multiple devices in series, make sure that the input and output devices are not in the same package. In this case, it is often better to use two dual op amps instead of one quad op-amp. In addition to these guidelines, the performance of analog circuitry can be improved by a technique called ground rings. A ground ring is used to isolate a section of circuitry from the rest of the board. It is most useful for high-end op-amps. Figure below is an example for ground ring.

Ground Rings Differential Signals are often used to improve systems dynamic range and noise immunity. When routing differential signals, it is important that the two lines be routed completely parallel and close to each other. The reason for this is so that any external noise will be coupled equally onto each line, and thus subtracted out at the receiver. The guard traces must be at 0 volt potential surrounding clocks, periodic signals, differential pairs or system critical traces from source to destination. Shunt traces are traces located directly above or below a high threat trace that parallels the trace along its entire route. Both Guard and Shunt trace are implemented enforcing 3-W rule. The primary function of guard and shunt traces is to provide an alternative return path to RF currents to return to source. Trace termination plays an important role in ensuring optimal signal integrity as well as minimizing development of RF energy; absorbs unwanted energy. When the length of the trace exceeds one-sixth of the electrical length of the edge transition time, the trace requires termination. If the trace is short, still it may require termination to avoid ringing. The easiest way to terminate is to use resistive elements i.e. series termination, end termination, diode termination, parallel termination resistor etc...

Placement and Routing Considerations for High-speed Digital Circuit Boards:

The high speed operation of digital circuitry (includes microprocessors or digital signal processors, static or dynamic RAM, flash memory, high-speed programmable logic, and complex mixed signal processors) has large data busses which create tremendous electrical noise. Every pin which connects to the power supply must have a decoupling capacitor (0.1 micro farad ceramic is typical). In addition to the 0.1 micro farad decouplers on each power pin, you should provide a bulk decoupling capacitor for each large digital device. This is usually a larger capacitance (10 micro farad tantalum is typical) to provide energy store for this hungry digital chip! To prevent noisy chip from corrupting power supply, a capacitor should be placed between the power supply and the chip as shown in figure below.

Correctly placed and routed decoupling capacitor When routing keep the route length as short as possible to avoid ringing in the circuitry (ringing effect can be minimized by terminating the routes with a shunt resistor (pull-up or pull-down resistor approximately 10 k placed at destination). Note: The shunt termination will dissipate power and load the logic gate that is driving the line.

In high speed clock lines a series termination is often used to minimize the ringing to tolerable levels. The series resistor is usually 150 ohms (typical) placed at the source of the signal. A high-speed digital clock can be fanned out in two ways: (1) Star bust (2) daisy-chain The starburst route places the clock source in the center of a star, with each clock load at the end of a route. The problem here is that each arm of the star is a transmission line. If these lines arent terminated correctly, the reflections and ringing will all combine at the center of the star, and can ruin the clock signal. If each end of the star is terminated, the clock source may not have enough power to drive all of the terminations. The other solution is to route the clock signal in a daisy chain. This is a single, long route from the source, through each load one by one. The line should be terminated at the end to avoid ringing. This is a more difficult way to route the clock, but will often give superior results.

Placement and Routing Considerations for RF Circuit Boards:

Placement and Routing an RF circuit board is a challenge, at best is an acquired skill, and at worst is black magic
Start placing the high frequency components first followed by low frequency circuits. Do not place active devices near each other that have high gain, or that operate in the same frequency band. The signal chain should be placed as straight line as possible, and try not to generate any crossovers especially in high gain IF sections. If there are any bends or cross over in signal chain, try to do it such that the points those overlap are at greatly different frequencies.

RF board Routing considerations:

The first thing to think about in routing RF design is grounding. Low level analog, RF/Microwave and digital sections must be separated. Divide RF/Microwave section into circuit groups (VCO, LO, Amps, etc.). Place high frequency components first, to minimize length of each RF route. Place highest frequency components nearest to connectors. Dont locate unrelated outputs and inputs near each other. Especially multi stages winding back on one another. When either the output or input to amplifiers must be long, choose the output. Remember, trace impedance (zo) is a critical factor in the effort to control reflections. Impedance must match driver and load. In traces shorter than 1/20th long, zo matching is usually not important. When pull-up resistors or inductors are used on the outputs of open collector devices, place the pull-up component right at the output pin its pulling. Also, make certain to decouple the pull-up, in addition to the main power pins of the integrated circuit. Inductors have large magnetic fields around them-they should not be placed close together, when in parallel (unless intent is to have their magnetic fields couple). - Separate inductors by one times body height (min) (or) place perpendicular to one another.

Keep ALL routes confined to the stage or section to which they are assignedDigital traces in the digital section. Low level analog in low level analog. RF / microwave in RF / microwave section. Dont route traces into adjoining sections.

Short RF traces should be on component side of board, routed to eliminate vias. Next layer below RF traces should be ground. Minimizing vias in RF path minimizes breaks in ground plane(s)- Minimizes inductance. - Helps contain stray electric & magnetic fields. Controls lines can be long, but must route away from RF inputs. RF / microwave lines must be kept away from one another by min distances to prevent unintended coupling & crosstalk.

Minimum spacing is a function of how much coupling is acceptable.

Place ground copper (20H wide) between sections, most specifically between inputs and outputs. Keep each route as short as possible, as measured from the pin of the device you are grounding to the ground plane or area. Never route high-level signals near low-level ones (this leads to interference and cross coupling). Attach ground copper to board planes every 1/20th wavelength of principal frequency. In RF circuits any trace that is longer than 1/16th of a wavelength will act as a transmission line.

 If a microstrip is used on the circuit board then any metal cover must be kept far above the traces (This will keep the electric field lines above the microstrip from becoming distorted by the presence of a cover). Velocity of propagation and dielectric constant are reciprocals to each other, and are used to describe signal propagation. A good rule of thumb is to keep all other traces and vias at least five line widths away from the microstrip line. Another design guideline is to try to make all of your RF traces into Microstrip (in this way, every RF trace you route (no matter how short) will automatically have proper impedance). One should never place three or more routing layers adjacent to each other. Each routing layer must be adjacent to a solid reference plane. Each partition must be grounded to chassis in as many locations as possible to minimize ground and signal loops. Vias and other discontinuities, such as connector pins, cannot be placed between routed trace pairs.

 20H Rule RF current will radiate off the edges of the PCB as a result of interplane coupling between the power and ground planes due to magnetic flux linkage. This interplane coupling is called fringing and is generally observed on only very highspeed PCBs. All the power planes should be made physically smaller than their respective ground planes (take into consideration the physical size of the PCB related to 1/20th of the highest generated frequency on the PCB). When using 20H rule, any traces on the adjacent signal routing plane, located over the absence of copper area, must be rerouted inward to be physically adjacent to a solid reference plane (Voltage or Ground), with no exceptions allowed. If functional partitioning is required on the PCB, 20-H should be implemented in high frequency bandwidth areas only. 90-degrees corners do-not affect the performance of a PCB layout. They emit RF energy which is approximately 3 to 5dB, which is so small that most instrumentation cannot measure it. The main reason for not designing a PCB with right angle corner lies with manufacturing. The 3-W rule minimizes cross talk within a PCB To minimize coupling between transmission line (or) PCB traces the separation between the traces must be 3 times the width of a single trace measured from center to center. Use of the 3-W rule is mandatory for high-threat signals, such as clock, differential pairs, video, audio, reset line, or other system-critical nets. It is important to determine which traces are to be classified as critical. The distance between paired traces must be 1-W for differential traces, and 3W for each differential pair to adjacent traces.