The Full Story
Practical PCB Design Manufacture
In addition to exploring PCB design using Altium Designer, Professor Eric Bogatin's Practical PCB Design and Manufacture (ECEN 5730) at the University of Colorado Boulder explores the depths of building a good PCB with little noise, optimal performance, and signal integrity. I gave it the nickname "roller coaster" because there will be many ups and downs, scary times, but at the end you will be glad you went through it.
Boards:
Board- 1
With a straightforward, practical design, the goal of this board project was to provide us with an opportunity to become familiar with the full board design flow and process. The Astable multivibrator circuit with a 555-timer served as an illustration of the design approach utilized to hold a functional PCB board.
Board- 2
This board served as a demonstration of the best measurement techniques for measuring switching noise in a PCB as well as how layout choices affect the quantity of switching noise. The professor's version of
board 2's switching noise measurement gave us a taste of the board design for board 2.
We got to create our own version for this assignment. This board's distinguishing feature was the construction of two identical hex inverter circuits. Using proper design techniques, we laid out one circuit with a continuous return plane and a decoupling capacitor next to the IC's power pin. However, on the second circuit, we made every mistake possible.
