FPGA PCB Design Review - Phil's Lab #85

Design review of Xilinx Spartan 7 FPGA-based PCB, including triple buck converter, memory, USB-power, and I/O headers. Going through schematic and PCB, giving tips and guidelines throughout.
Altium design review competition: www.altium.com/altium-365/des...
[SUPPORT]
Free trial of Altium Designer: www.altium.com/yt/philslab
Patreon: / phils94
Mixed-signal hardware design course: phils-lab-shop.fedevel.education
[GIT]
GitHub: github.com/pms67
[WEBSITE]
www.phils-lab.net
[TIMESTAMPS]
00:00 Introduction
00:43 Altium Designer Free Trial
01:00 Design Review Competition (Altium)
01:21 Project Overview
02:08 Schematic #1 - Memory
03:57 Schematic #2 - Power Supply
08:17 Schematic #3 - I/O
09:56 Schematic #4 - FPGA Power and Decoupling
11:17 Schematic #5 - FPGA Banks
13:09 Schematic #6 - FPGA Configuration
16:04 PCB #1 - Overview, Layers, Stack-Up
18:48 PCB #2 - Switching Regulator, Design Rules, Via Sizing, Power
25:24 PCB #3 - Board Outline, Mounting Holes
27:17 PCB #4 - FPGA Power and Decoupling
28:16 PCB #5 - Transfer Vias
28:49 PCB #6 - Differential Pairs
30:10 PCB #7 - Clearance, Copper Pours, Power Planes
31:23 PCB #8 - Silkscreen, USB-C
32:45 Outro

[@petergagliano3756]

Thank you Phil for reviewing my board! Some really great advice that I'm going to start applying immediately to both modify this design and future fpga designs

[@TheDigital19]

also double check Q1 (wrong symbol, wrong orientation)

[@remy-]

Thank you Peter and Phil, this was a very interesting movie!

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks for sending it in, Pietro - good job overall on the design :)

[@isaacclark9825]

Thank you for being the sacrificial anode.

[@piranha1337]

Thank you Peter!

[@bikothewolf]

Really enjoying the design reviews, always informative.

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks, Biko - glad to hear that. Should continue at about one a month :)

[@bikothewolf]

@@PhilsLab Awesome! 👍

[@asmi06]

One lesson I've learnt the hard way regarding silkscreen - ALWAYS put a revision number on a board! Reality is you are going to have multiple revisions of the same PCB, and often it's hard to tell them apart visually (especially high-speed PCBs like those with FPGA), so it's entirely possible (and this actually happened to me!) for you to mistakenly assemble an older revision and waste a lot of time and effort to "transplant" parts onto a proper revision PCB.

[@Peter_S_]

I'm in that club too. Part numbering for the board which includes the rev level is an absolute must.

[@rb8049]

Create a Phil’s PCB checklist. Laminate and sell it. Maybe a laminated PCB guide with simple examples, typical numbers, etc. You could have ones for different applications too. You could charge $19.99 for a guide. Seems reasonable and worth it.

[@piranha1337]

Put the checklist on a PCB :D

[@StreuB1]

Agreed. "Best Practices" design guides or "speed notes" are super helpful. Generally an engineer will build their own speed notes over the early years in their career, learning from the more Sr. engineers and from their bumps along the road. Though having something to start out with would be really handy for those who don't have someone to learn from and are on their own or have coworkers who aren't as friendly or helpful.

[@PhilsLab]

That would indeed be a good idea :) I was planning on making a video on PCB/schematic design checklists, but would be good to have it in PDF-form at least as well!

[@asmi06]

​@@PhilsLab Xilinx actually provides a very good schematic checklist (xmp277). It's absolutely worth using for any designs with 7 series FPGAs, as it prevents many silly mistakes.

[@krakamak]

@@PhilsLab yes please!

[@ZayMeisters]

Thank you! I have been looking doing my first FPGA design and this video definitely helped. Hopefully enough people filled that survey so you can make that FPGA design course as well!

[@PhilsLab]

Glad to hear that! Yes, quite a number of people have registered their interest. I'm currently developing the course :)

[@asmi06]

That clock connection is definitely going to be a problem. I actually made it a rule to always create some sort of design in Vivado first before getting on with schematics and layout because it allows you to confirm that pinout you've chosen will actually work.

[@jaroslavpsenicka]

the 330R resistor is connected to 3V3 while the 2K is at 5V rail so the 2K value might eventually be good if we want approx the same brightness (around 9:20)

[@kaukospots]

This is really making me want to learn Altium, even as a hobbyist

[@zyeborm]

Not to detract from altium but have you tried kicad 6? it has only recently been released (last few months) and it's got a lot of nice things in it. It's pretty good especially for the price lol.

[@WinterCircuits]

Again, another very helpful informative video! Always learn a thing or ten from your videos and incorporate the good practices in my designs. Thanks Phil!

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you - glad to hear that!

[@bartek153]

I bloody enjoy them reviews! Keep the coming Phil :)

[@Letsroutepcb]

Thank you Philip for kind of amazing informative video. Would love to see more 😊

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks, Moshiur!

[@piranha1337]

I simply love your design reviews!

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you!

[@rick_er2481]

Awesome and insightful review, thank you

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks, Rick!

[@badarjahangirkayani6196]

Great video as always.

[@luizoctaviomartini8174]

Watching your videos makes me wanna make some popcorn to go along with it... Seriously, in a sea of boredom and useless content in KZbin your channel is a treasure chest of information. Well explained and detailed information, in a concise format. Love it! In the moment I'm not that focused on FPGAs but maybe kinda looking to go into them into the future for some adventures with ELS and DLS spectroscopy... But I think I can get the ADC sampling rates I might need with some register manipulation on faster-ish microcontrollers. Anyways, thanks for your content! :)

[@PhilsLab]

Thank you very much, Luiz! Yeah, a lot of the comments I make in the design review videos should be transferrable to many other designs. Most of my designs aren't FPGA-based either but it's nice to mix it up here and there.

[@--JYM-Rescuing-SS-Minnow]

I like using the part templates, usually in the part library folders. in most AAA softwares!! & copying the pdf info is paramount also!! good luck all !! thanks again!

[@LimbaZero]

Also one thing that I recommend to do is vendor checklist for FPGA or family. They usually check common pitfalls there

[@volkanozdemir44]

GREAT VIDEO!

[@RafaGmod]

oh god, what an excellent class!

[@davidgaspar8566]

At 6m30, Q1 is wired in reverse. The LED will be always on because of the internal diode of the mosfet. Thank you for your videos.

[@majedm.alharthi2034]

Thank you for the very informative review! Did you make a video about stitching vias, and polygon pours (For ground)?

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks, Majed. I covered that a tiny bit in my "Vias 101" video.

[@mohammadshebli162]

Hello Phil, I would like to ask where I can find the starting point on designing FPGA board, I would like to do a design and test it I would really appreciate any help regarding this manner

[@eledikohabib3369]

Thank you for the overview Philip...if you have time maybe we can have some DDR3 fan-out....thank you

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks for watching. Planning on making a video covering DDR* pretty soon!

[@tharukanayanajith3510]

Thank you🙏🙏🙏

[@deangreenhough3479]

Great review Phil. Is the FPGA course going to be ready soon? 🍿 I believe it will be after Xmas?

[@PhilsLab]

Thanks, Dean! Aim is to have the new course released by January/February :)

[@thai19995]

Hello Phil, thanks for the video. I noticed that there isn't a top-schematic in the project, wouldn't Altium complain about this? As I remember, Altium doesn't allow multiple schematics with the same top level, is this still true? Thank you again for a very nice and informative video :)

[@stavrosnikiforos7798]

Is this design available on GitHub or online? I would like to download it and follow the video in parallel for learning purposes.

[@PhilsLab]

I don't think so. I'll ask Pietro if he'd be up for releasing his files publicly.

[@stavrosnikiforos7798]

Hi Phil. Any update on the Advanced PCB course with the FPGA you were planning to release? Any chance it will be released before Christmas? That would be awesome. Thank you in advance.

[@PhilsLab]

Hi Stavros, Working on it at the moment! Release is looking to be around February 2023.

[@zyeborm]

My only critique of your review would be don't apologise so much ;-) Especially for the same thing (jumping around) repeatedly. It's all good mate. That said, thanks for making this, I learnt a bunch of little things that have always bugged me about my boards. That "something" that is the difference between a good looking board and...what I do lol.

[@Quantum_Dots]

I'm interested in review of Pixhawk Autopilot board

[@rick_er2481]

Is it opensource?

[@mrechbreger]

Maybe I missed it within the video, fiducials are missing?

[@Peter_S_]

Good catch.

[@SuperAstraeus]

I've noticed you are using metric system in other videos. Is there a specific reason for that?

[@PhilsLab]

I normally use metric for everything. However, Altium schematics are typically 'normed' to 100mil grids.

[@SuperAstraeus]

@@PhilsLab thank you, your videos helps me alot. Keep up good work.

[@Program2live]

Great video, be good if you made a video on making a drone (out of a pcb), be interesting to see what you could do!

[@frankbose544]

its very hard to work on a design by yourself without over looking things

[@PhilsLab]

Agreed!

[@andrewfraser2760]

Though not mentioned by Phil, I would also make sure your component designators are on the silkscreen also.

[@arcover2048]

The MOSFET Q1 seems to be the wrong way around

[@kdn6827]

Hi Phil, Please upload your mixed signal design course on Udemy. People outside US had to pay alot due to conversion in local currency. Please consider uploading on Udemy so that worldwide students can enroll in it.

[@MathewPanicker1010]

These videos make me feel so dumb. I'm terrified at the prospect of designing even a custom Arduino board

[@rb8049]

I can’t stand people laying out off grid!

[@lolsypussy]

Page 1 annotations for memory should be in B (bytes) and not b (bits)