ENEL3CA/DA: Electronic/Computer Design 1 Lecture 5: PCB Philosophy and Design using Ultiboard

School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering

N Pillay

Outline
Some Philosophy What is a PCB? The PCB Structure, Fabrication Important tips Design using Ultiboard Footprint editing In-place editor Creating footprints A detailed summary Practice project

What is a PCB?
A printed circuit board or printed wiring board is used extensively in electronics and is a connected organization of electrical components on a board to execute a specific function. The main two purposes are to mount components and provide the means of electrical connection between the components.

What is a PCB
In the early era of vacuum tubes and even later electronic

equipment was constructed by hand wiring and point-topoint soldering. The equipment was large, awkward and bulky. As smaller components were developed and modular design became popular inter-component wiring and assembly came about the PCB

PCB Structure
The PCB starts out with a non-conducting sheet of material, normally a fibre glass epoxy laminate material. The board is coated with a thin layer of Cu. About 0.2mm thick. A double-sided board requires a copper layer on either side.

What is a PCB
Essential components of the PCB:
The Base (thin board of insulating material, rigid or flexible) The Conductors (high purity Cu)

What is a via?? (Unfilled or Filled) Single sided board

Manufacture: print and etch, die-cut Number of jumpers inverse proportion to size of board

What is a PCB
Double-sided board Plated-through-hole (PTH) NPTH

What is a PCB
NPTH

Eyelets also commonly used

What is a PCB
Multi-layer boards are very popular As many as 50 layers has been used

What is a PCB
Comparison of technologies Market drivers for PCBs

Some Common Solder techniques

oCVD - using conjugated polymers Wave method Solder paste reflow method Hand soldering

Fabrication
At the simplest level: Starting with a double-clad copper fibre glass epoxy laminate An etch-resistant material is deposited on the impurity-free copper layer this etch resist is the image of the circuit. Board is dipped into an etchant. Etch resist is removed. Board can be finalized with air blowing, hot oil, solder mask, silkscreen, solder dip, etc. Another option use photo resist and UV light source. Many modernized techniques used in conjunction with pickand-place machines.

The PCB structure, fabrication

Fabrication: CNC Processing

Fabrication
Single-sided board

Fabrication
PTH double-sided

Important tips
Creating an electronic product at the system-level

Design elements for the PCB designer

Important tips
Performance parameters

Important tips
How to choose the width of track? Remember it depends on the current and temperature rise

requirement. For external tracks we use

For internal tracks we use

Important tips

Important tips
Choosing the conductor

width

Important tips
Nomographs Conductor resistance Conductor thickness Conductor width

Important tips
Capacitance consideration Conductors on opposite sides

form a capacitor

Important tips
Inductance Even at 10kHz, high frequency components of rectangular

shaped signals can cause problems.

Important tips
Standards IPC IPC-2221-Generic Standard on Printed

Board Design. Always start with a detailed, debugged and accurate schematic diagram. Choose a metric for the design of the PCB keep the enclosure/packaging in mind. Millimeter (mm) vs.Thou (mil). Try to use as many wide tracks as possible. Wide tracks have low impedance. Use necking, to fit tracks between pads and places allowing small clearance.

Important tips
Tracks that are acceptable and unacceptable

Important tips
Bunching

Important tips
Recommended and not recommended

Important tips
Try to use either round or oval pads, use rectangular pads if

needed. Use round pads for through-hole components, eg. Resistors, capacitors, etc. Use rectangular pads for suface-mount components. Use rectangular pads for pin 1 on IC footprints. Try as much as possible to minimize the number of vias possible. Use polygons as much as possible especially on the ground path lower impedance.

Important tips
Break design into functional blocks if possible and organize

components accordingly. Good practice to route inputs from the left to outputs on the right. Babaks Test of Futility. Check design rules and connectivity. Check manually with the schematic. Use chamfers and tear drops as much as possible. Try to avoid acid traps. Use test points in your PCB design. Follow all manufacturer constraints. Dont cut too close to these.

Important tips
Swapping of gates and parts and pins

The Schematic

Ultiboard Transfer

Drag the components

Aside
When generating your schematic try not to use virtual

components. If virtual components are used then you will need to insert footprints manually. This is not too difficult either but takes a little more time.

Footprint editing

Creating new footprints

Detailed Summary
Design the schematic and check extensively Transfer to Ultiboard using the Transfer tab. It is also possible to export from Multisim to many other

common PCB Tools. Use a track witdh of 0.8mm, use a clearance of 0.5mm. (These constraints can be relaxed depending on the technology) Adjust board size Use the Tools > Board wizard Choose between single layer, double layer, multi-layer

Detailed Summary
Specify form-factor for board Drag components onto board Try to group similar components into groups or sub-systems Keep connectors at the edges of the board Always think about the packaging solution The board must

be tailored to suit this. Double-click footprints to edit the pads, etc. Use Tools > Component Wizard to create new footprints, or simply use the footprint of a similar component and edit by double clicking.

Detailed Summary
Carefully place components by looking at the ratsnest and try

to minimize big bunches of wires travelling around the board Change the orientation of components to avoid tangled lines Dont worry about the size of the board too much, it can be changed after arranging components by accessing its Properties Good to do the power first and the ground Can be put onto a separate layer to protect the other sensitive analog and digital circuitry from EMI. Use bottom for rest of connections, i.e. signal lines, etc.

Detailed Summary

Choose the other copper layer Hide or take out the original copper layer Continue with routing You can also check the Netlist and DRC check or the Connectivity check. Connect all the traces and run a final check. All rules must be followed. Check ERC tab. If you are stuck and cannot route further use vias. Try to minimize these. The PCB can be finally optimised within your list of constraints and must be checked extensively for bugs. Include test points on your PCB.

Detailed Summary
Also possible to use Autorouting where some routing

algorithm is used to connect up all components. Some algorithms take long others are quicker. We normally settle for manual routing gives the designer most control. Another approach to use the autoroute and to manually check and change in accordance. What is a via? What is a net/netlist? Avoid right angles, t-junctions and acute angle routing can lead to acid traps and a possible decrease in signal integrity.

Class Practice Project

Each student is required to complete the full PCB for the

Multisim sample circuit (C:\Program Files\Electronics Workbench\EWB9\samples\FrequencyDivider.ms9). Remember to include test points and to follow all the design rules and constraints in the guide.