Design Review (Spartan 7 FPGA) - Schematic & PCB - Phil's Lab #63

[@ricardoquesada]

I like the idea this new format of "design reviews". Please, keep doing them!

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks, Ricardo - many more to come!

[@gurubalaguru8465]

@@PhilsLab Hi Phil, I am interested to build my own circuits and PCBs. My ultimate aim is to design my own flight controller for drone. Kindly suggest some books and courses where I can start and reach my goal I.e to design my own pcbs for my project. Please guide me

[@msmith2961]

Hand soldering 0201 is insane! I got down to 0603, but have to buy 4x the required components - one sneeze and half of them disappear into a black hole.

[@thomassui4879]

super help for me to improve my PCB design based on KiCAD. I would make lots of those mistakes as the board designer made, and I would not know it is a mistake until I see this video. Hopeful see more video like this. Thank you.

[@ianthehunter3532]

Good content you got there, never thought of why it's 3V3, not 3.3 ✨

[@iancooper418]

I am dreading you reviewing mine now, its going to get ripped to shreds lol.

[@PhilsLab]

Haha don't worry, although I haven't looked through yours yet, I'm sure you did great! :)

[@isaacclark9825]

Your sacrifice will help the rest of us. Thank you in advance.

[@asmi06]

Engineers must grow a thick skin, every mistake you are pointed at is a learning opportunity. Nobody is born with this knowledge, so every professional once was a rookie and made his/her share of mistakes, quite possibly even more embarassing that yours as finding information was much harder than it is right now.

[@iancooper418]

@@PhilsLab NO i did not, it was an old design from when i started using Altium and is full of errors but i don't mind if you show it as a "how not to do it"

[@Program2live]

Really enjoyed that one, tons of useful information!

[@the_lightyear]

Amazing content, Thanks for the video! I always like to watch your videos and compare with my design to check what can be improved

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks for watching!

[@yaseen.m.t]

we need more of these videos, keep it up

[@PhilsLab]

Many more to come, thanks :)

[@zoroxide]

Nice content, keep it up!

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you :)

[@rustyanvil51]

Very educational content. Outstanding.

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you!

[@nickhubbard3671]

Good review!

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks, Nick!

[@_a_x_s_]

Great video. Not sure whether this is the method to do a formal design review. However, the basic principles underlying those checks are really useful. They are also the good practice for designs. Learned something as always :)

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks! Definitely nowhere near what a formal design review would be like, rather a quick skim through the design and pointing out some things that jumped out at me.

[@_a_x_s_]

@@PhilsLab I am curious about how a formal design review is conducted. I believe it can be useful to cut the unnecessary manufacturing time and cost after design (, which is good for us hobbyists:)). Do you have any plan to make a video about it in the future?

[@DehimVerveen]

Great video. I would add that there are large discontinuities in the ground plane, with long traces routed on it and some vias being spaced in such a way that copper cannot flow between them. Try to keep ground plane discontinuities as small as possible. Also, there's a lot of copper that has been etched away at the top and bottom layers. This copper could have been used to increase plane capacitance / decrease plane inductance of power nets. Just don't pour power/ground between nets unless you really know what you're doing. This could also improve manufacturability, depending on the exact process used. I disagree with your point at 16:15 where you say you should use zero ohm resistors to distinguish functionality of different pins. If a zero ohm resistor isn't needed, I wouldn't put it in the design just to make it more clear what the function of a pin is. Do however name the pins of your IC, so you can see what the functionality is of the pin. Also, look at the device datasheet if they provide a recommended layout.

[@asmi06]

Also I forgot to mention the coolest part - you can run Linux on this board!

[@maxhouseman3129]

All bigger fpga are capable of doing this.

[@MrEptor]

I've been wanting to create my own fuga boards for quite a while now, watching this inspires me to attempt it, I'll probably fail the first time :)

[@asmi06]

@@MrEptor If you don't fail - you don't learn. Failures generally teach you much more than successes. So go for it!

[@JeromeDemers]

Nice video. Most companies have design guide that show the do and don’t. Same as writing code.

[@AskeCarstensen]

Awesome content, Keep it up!

[@penguin1714]

This is sick. More!

[@PhilsLab]

More to come! :)

[@johnstephenson4428]

Well done to both of you!!! There was allot learn Thanks!!

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you, John!

[@Audio_Simon]

Wait wait.. ✋️ the reason I see many 0R resistors is purely to circumvent net naming in the design stage? I had no idea!! I have sometimes used jumper pads joined by a trace in the footprint, or done a bodge that triggers a DRC error.

[@maazsiddiqui6324]

Hi phil, I imported an eagle project to KiCAD firstly what happened is grid is at an offset, secondly when I run rules check is shows bunch of warning pin not connected although they are connected (not showing circles and square which indicates unconnected pin). Can you guide how to align the grid and get clear those rules check warning. Thanks.

[@eis3nheim]

Great video, learning a lot.

[@evanshonu2063]

Nice review Phil

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you, CT!

[@tivorum]

Thanx a lot! Great review!!!

[@potnurukapish6651]

As usual, great video....

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks!

[@alessiocaffi5992]

Phil's Lab, very interesting indeed. with Andrey's permission would be nice to see your Altium build of this same project. Would also be nice to see an RF/microwave PCB design layout with ADS import or AWR (microwave office), don't know if you are also into HF PCB design though! Cheers.

[@rehandrone7146]

Pls keep up the good work...

[@jonathanfulcher602]

Great comments, very helpful.

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you, Jonathan.

[@certified-forklifter]

i love the series!

[@isaacclark9825]

Great new content every 7 to 10 days? How are you doing that?

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks a lot, Isaac - definitely keeping busy with the videos! :)

[@ChristopherBrandsdal]

I LOVE it!

[@kissingfrogs]

Learing lots. Thanks for sharing. Q. I think you said the inner layers should be GND and stitched, so is typical stack PWR/GND/GND/SIGNAL. And if there are multiple voltages say 3V3, 5V0 and 12V0 do we keep those all on the same layer with flood fills?

[@thetastefultoastie6077]

[ SIG / GND / GND / SIG ] Then route power traces on the signal layers. Power traces are usually lower priority than most signal traces (USB, SPI, CLK, etc) except maybe something like an enable line which rarely changes state.

[@obregr]

wery good conteng,i admire this and your work

[@gurubalaguru8465]

@Phil’s Lab Hi Phil, I am interested to build my own circuits and PCBs. My ultimate aim is to design my own flight controller for drone. Kindly suggest some books and courses where I can start and reach my goal I.e to design my own pcbs for my project. Please guide me

[@NourMuhammad]

I can't believe someone was able to make an FPGA layout and made this mistake with the switching regulator loops!

[@YuriyKrivosheyev]

Thank you! Great!

[@gi-electrotech8574]

It's really wonderful

[@Eldon_Dice]

0201 hand solder! It's like holding down fleas.

[@BHBalast]

Thanks for the video :)

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks for watching :)

[@aneeshprasobhan]

Good stuff

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks, Aneesh!

[@haraldh.9354]

thx --this is competence

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you, Harald.

[@yacineyaker7485]

i like this idea, maybe i will send you mine after finishing it and you can title the vid student mistakes in designing pcb lol ( coz m still a student )

[@TYGAMatt]

Better not send you any of my designs.... I'd get roasted!! LOL

[@PhilsLab]

I'm sure you'd do well, Matt! :)

[@TYGAMatt]

@@PhilsLab Very diplomatic answer Phil ;-)

[@tamaseduard5145]

👍🙏💖

[@ikbendusan]

i hate multi page schematics. imo there is no reason to do that if you have infinite space and you're not going to print it to paper (who does?)

[@_a_x_s_]

It is used for modular functional design. With a top-level abstraction, you can easily understand the design logic and the intend of the original designers. Anyway, I print the schematics if I want to deep dive into the circuits. I also print my designed schematics to do the final review. You know, even if DRC generally does all those basic checks for you, there may be something missing on the schematic that DRC checker cannot examine. And I found that I can see something different when it is printed or drawn. So multi-page schematics can be helpful for me sometimes.

[@iancooper418]

I always print the schematic as i find it easier to follow when i am laying out the board. I use 2 monitors, 1 for Altium and 1 for looking at data sheets as i go. It saves me from having to keep swapping screens. You would hate the design i am working on at the moment, i am up to 12 schematics and i will probably add several more. This is my final project for my Masters Degree and if the auditor was not able to follow the flow logically, it would be an instant fail.

[@KnaufL]

I always print the schematic, especially for assembly, i like to cross-over with a pen the components that have been placed, so i don't forget something. Also printed BOM is a must for cross-referencing because small smd psrts don't have markings

[@ikbendusan]

​@@KnaufL why not use an interactive BOM? no need to print out anything unless you really hate sitting behind a computer (in which case why are you choosing to work with electronics lol)

[@ikbendusan]

@@_a_x_s_ sounds to me like a problem that can be solved with due diligence. what stops you from looking more closely at the design you have made on the screen before printing it out? if you ask me, multiple pages obfuscates more than anything. the added value to me comes from using hierarchical sheets as building blocks (you can assign inputs and outputs in the parent sheet) which provides an overview of the architecture. in the grand scheme of things it comes down to preference of course; i'm just sharing my thoughts