Review of a PCB Layout: Do you do same mistakes? - For Beginners (Part 1 of 4)

In this video series I am commenting a PCB layout done by someone starting with hardware design. We will speak about the things which could be done differently or which could be improved.
Would you like to support me in what I do? It's simple:
- you will help me a LOT, when you sign up for one of our Schematic and PCB Design online courses at www.fedevel.com/academy/
The other ways to support me in what I do are:
- support me through Patreon page / robertferanec
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- send me an email and/or leave a positive comment
- watch and like the videos :)
- read my Welldone Blog at www.fedevel.com/welldoneblog/
- spread a word about FEDEVEL Academy
It is much appreciated. Thank you,
- Robert

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you very much for so many nice words :)

[@MuhammadAli-iy4qn]

do more videos like this

[@MatzeMaulwurf]

Nice! But I would love to see 2-Layer Layout. Most beginners will start with two layers. Most issues you mentioned are suitable to 2-layer boards, I think. You are a great teacher. I‘m in commercial pcb design since 15 years but learned a lot from your videos!

[@CodeJeffo]

More of this king of videos would be really awesome and appreciated by many. Keep it up Rob!

[@josepaul2000]

Love the calm, focused energy!

[@TheGazanews]

Happy to see you again

[@ekarter1981]

Glad to see your professional videos again, Robert!

[@kfirmaymon84]

Great work, happy to seeing you again, can't wait for part 2. I would love to have a tutorial on differential pairs and way they need to be impudence matches

[@khoily9137]

Superb explanation. Thank you very much for your constructive critiques on how PCB design should be done.

[@michaelchin7327]

Great video! Thanks Robert!

[@zhitailiu3876]

Hurray! Robert is back!

Great video! Thanks, Robert!

[@mdchethan]

Hi RF, Great advice about the power supply design (Applies to both Switching and Linear power supply design), which is the placement of input capacitor and the associated Via. Hope to see remaining parts soon.

[@aliuzel4211]

If you dont know electronics fundementals and the features of the components you are using, you will probably fail at the layout stage. This video is very good to show how to combine electronics knowledge and layout. Thank you so much. Beside this, it may also good to search the best possible component selections during the design. I guess there are many better regulator choices that make the layout easier and the circuit design better. Thank a lot again for the great video Robert.

[@IncaTrails]

Hi Robert - Glad to see that you are publishing again

[@cacgi]

looking forward to seeing part 2 , 3 and 4

[@tc2770]

Thanks Robert. I feel like there should be an entire part 0 that just goes over the placement decisions.

[@gettingpast4391]

Very good! Thank you! I will be watching more of your videos.

[@giannisasp1208]

Hi Robert, great to see you again

[@emi5370]

Very interesting video as usual. Thanks for the hard work

[@ab-zp1gs]

Great video, thank you.

[@kamejoko80]

First do placement and in mind figure out how to route the traces, second do routing and optimize the layout, take care of thermal dissipation because it is important when assembling the board.

[@bloguetronica]

Learned a lot with this video. I thought it was not OK to use thinner traces near the pads (i.e. the trace should have the same thickness), but now I see it is totally OK to do it. My designs were restricted to enveloping small pads with filled polygons, and then connecting thick traces to these polygons, but that is somewhat limiting, and now I find it unnecessary, after seeing your video.

[@manouchehrmail]

Thanks a lot for putting time on this\these video(s).

[@alperenalperen2458]

Great content!

[@aliuzel4211]

I am also working on a complicated schematic design (expexted 3500 -4000 components, PCIE 3.0, 10G ethernet, 16 layers, ~ 25 cm × 50 cm) and will leave the layout design to a design house. I may share some parts of it when I make it work.

[@mahdilor548]

It was very useful, thanks

[@ou81218]

Good series. Very helpful.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you very much

[@mohamedtebbo123]

Thank you

[@vonnikon]

About having the via behind the capacitor. This is a common opinion, but I have not actually seen any conclusive evidence that this is necessarily the best approach. In fact, every simulation I have seen indicates the the most ideal layout is to have as many vias as possible, close to both the pin and the capacitor. And no one is suggesting placing the vias behind the capacitor in large BGA designs. Think about the purpose of the decoupling capacitor: To provide a low inductance source of charge to the pin. There are two sources of charge here: The capacitor, and the power plane. By moving the via behind the capacitor you are increasing the inductance to one of the two sources of charge.

[@MartenElectric]

Brilliant! Thanks Robert, I've learned a lot :)

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you

[@nopair5688]

Hi Robert welcome back. I'm really happy see you. thank you for share good video. as a software developer I enjoy of your videos.

[@RobertFeranec]

Wow, thank you. I didn't know, that also software developers are watching these videos - that is interesting.

[@zino1313]

Thanks for the video

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you Abdou for leaving your feedback

[@ismailovali6368]

Thank you so much Robert, I like you very much :)

[@SpencerSkelly]

So happy to see you on here again! Your approach to each topic is excellent and really appreciated. If you have time, how do you feel about boards soldered to boards, like the RF variety with castellated edges? Is it worth going back and implementing the design directly to your board?

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you Spencer. I am not sure what you mean by RF, but if that includes also wireless modules which require FCC certification, then we usually prefer keep buying modules as it is cheaper and easier to certify our product.

[@m4l490n]

Robert, this is an awesome idea! As others have said, I wouldn't mind also to share my designs to be featured in one of these videos, they are really helpful and instructive for everyone.

[@RobertFeranec]

If you like and if you do not mind me to share your design on youtube, you can send it to me. However, please, I can not promise, that I will make video about your design.

[@ltlt6117]

Hi as you said we have to good spacing between traces it's a question for me if i have good space between my traces but i fill this space with ground plane can make crosstalk or noise?????

[@VeritasEtAequitas]

I just read an analysis by a professional and PhD, and 90° corners are usually fine. It's only when you get to to microwave levels of frequency that it matters much.

[@paulhome2023]

I know it's a old video. But the right angle tracks shouldn't be a problem if u are not doing HF designs Which video did you talk about that right angel problem ?

[@GabrielGosmann]

Great video! I also wouldn't mind sharing my designs with you for further classes like this. Awesome.

[@RobertFeranec]

Gabriel, if it is ok that I make a video and comment your layout there, you can send it to me :)

[@watson8087]

@@RobertFeranec Hello Robert, can I send you my design for review? Just so you can point out how I could have done it better.

[@RobertFeranec]

@@watson8087 If I could make a video about it and publicly comment, yes you can (but I can't promise I will make the video). The best is to use our forum and ask specific questions there: designhelp.fedevel.com/

[@watson8087]

@@RobertFeranec Sure. You can make a video with it publicly. It's my first board. Don't worry about not being able to make a video on it. Just a visual inspection and a few words of thought is enough for me. Thanks. 😊

[@RobertFeranec]

@@watson8087 Please, you can post your board on our forum here: designhelp.fedevel.com/ I will have a look. Thank you.

[@kaumohlamonyane272]

RF is such a cool name for an electronic engineer 🤣💯🔥

[@RobertFeranec]

:)

[@srishtisingh9864]

Can do some PCB layout with easyeda .....please...

[@travism9376]

Hey Robert I think a great video would be to do a 2 layer design for more simple boards maybe up to 20 components. I've been looking and not much for that on you tube. Lots of people want to make simple boards for esp 32 etc Thanks

[@RobertFeranec]

Try this kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZjGiHSFfq2merc or this kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZDTYYyMYq-fnLc

[@anameisrequired3729]

also the ground return is a long teeny high inductance trace

[@RobertFeranec]

yes, good eye :) I will be speaking about that area in Part 4

[@jedisonjow]

Thanks for the videos. They are really helpful. I still have two questions on the GOOD pcb layout. 1. Is it a good practice to vary the width along a trace? I was advised not to do so. Is there any drawback of it? 2. Since you used a shape with two vias to connect some GND pads to GND plane, is it easier to cause tombstone issue? How to avoid it?

[@EfieldHfield_377]

Greetings - the answer to question 1 is it depends. If you are dealing with high speed frequencies or high power then no you should not do it for functional sake. For high frequency signals changing the width of a trace changes the trace characteristic impedance and as such can created discontinuities along the transmission line that may lead to unwanted reflections. If the signal is low speed or DC AND carrying a large amount of current then changing the trace width (smaller) can create a situation where the trace can overheat or burn away. Traces are sized (width and thickness) to carry X amount of current at X degrees of ambient. Hope this helps - and great question BTW.

[@CuriousMaker609]

This is awesome. I wouldn't mind sharing all my designs if you would critique the design in videos. It is just wishful thinking I am aware that it is time consuming and impossible! This is where I struggle as I don't have peers to review my designs.

[@NatureAndTech]

I would be happy to review your layout. I have 30+ years experience and a youtube channel ;)

[@CuriousMaker609]

I am game if you are!

[@m4l490n]

NatureAndTech is that offer open for anyone? Because even at my job, I don't have any peers to help me review my designs, it would be extremely helpful to me to have some one with experience to help me learn and identify mistakes.

[@RobertFeranec]

If you like and if you do not mind me to share your design on youtube, you can send it to me. However, please, I can not promise, that I will make video about your design.

[@RobertFeranec]

NatureAndTech, I just watch some videos from your channel and you have an awesome Lab! It would be fantastic if you could help some people by reviewing their layouts. THUMBS UP!

[@Mohamed_Akurdi]

Hello Robert, Thanks for the awesome videos. I wanna ask if I have the supply capacitors 5mm away from the IC, would that be OK or they should get closer.

[@RobertFeranec]

It is hard to answer your question directly as it may depend on many factors, but generally this is what I follow: It is not always possible to place capacitor directly to the pin, but I try to place them as close as possible. Also, I try to route the tracks the way, that currents flow through the caps. PS: There will be a few words about this topic also in the next videos.

[@pau1976]

When you say you want the board to look 'nice' what exactly makes it look good?

[@RobertFeranec]

Usually I mean tidy (e.g. aligned, straight, ...) and not messy (weird looking tracks, components placed as they would be just thrown on the PCB, ...).

[@trevortjes]

I still wonder what the use is of physical big nets and tracks when the signal or input voltage ends up at a tiny pin of an IC.

[@RobertFeranec]

I sometimes wonder too :). But the pins should be designed the way, that they can handle the required powers and signals

[@vladan_kovacevic]

trevortjes I'd say it's because resistance is 'cumulative'. If you run thin trace to the input pin, you end up with track that has bigger resistance than the track that is thick but goes into thin pin at the end. For power tracks resistance should be as low as possible, of course.

[@josmarmichelvillanuevahern4495]

Hi Feranec. I watch your videos and I would like to know whether you can provide me some names of books for EMC/EMI designing.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you Josmar. You may be surprised, I do not really have books about electronics. But I have seen some topics about it on our forum, for example here: designhelp.fedevel.com/forum/test/other-aa/13002-books-for-the-developer

[@kristianszalay5529]

Playback Speed: 1.25 Btw, the review is awesome.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you Kristian

[@kristianszalay5529]

@@RobertFeranec Yours and Dave's videos gave me more than 6 years on high school. I'm really thankful for your job here!

[@RobertFeranec]

@@kristianszalay5529 Thank you very much Kristian. PS: In the recent years when creating youtube videos and talking to all the different people I also learned a lot of new things.

[@va-josefranciscomontoya866]

Thank you for sharing the video. One thing that I noticed on both boards is that the parts placement are not balanced As much as possible, when there are IC's involved, parts are arranged in a rectangular "fortress" formation where the IC/CPU is at the center, and the other parts are flanked in all sides. Also, the parts preferably (MUST is better) placed in one orientation, either horizontal or vertical. In this manner, the insertion machines (through hole or SMD) will mount the parts in shorter amount of time, additional seconds are needed to rotate the part before inserting to the board. The longer it take to insert / assemble the board, the higher the costs, which is another consideration that needs taken into. Keep on sharing!

[@alperenalperen2458]

Why don't you use via in pad?

[@NatureAndTech]

Via holes in a solder pad has a tendency to suck out the solder from under the SMD pin. You have to control the amount of solder paste very carefully, or it often result in yield problems during mass production. Via in Pad should ONLY be done when there is no other choice.

[@abdullahcanbaz6429]

alt yazı ?

[@staystrong6896]

hello sir i have started creating footprints.. can you make video on how to read through hole datasheet .. i have some confusion and that would be very helpfull please...

[@km5405]

sees decoupling capacitors in random places.... *oh no*

[@btoiscool]

I'm bad but not THIS bad

[@btoiscool]

I bet whoever made this layout is so good now though