Node Location Is Critical

Perhaps the most important tip on our list is this – make important nodes as accessible as possible. This is particularly relevant to troubleshooting why your design is not working. If your important nodes aren’t accessible, your testing is going to hit a wall. Whether you’re going with loop-style nodes or something else, make sure they’re easy to access.

Component Spacing Matters a Lot

Today’s circuit boards support far more components than ever before. That’s great from an end-user standpoint. The more components on a board, the more functionality it supports, and the more users can do with the device. However, what is an advantage for end users can be a challenge for designers.

Simply put, the more components you add to a board, the more cramped they become within the design. And, make no mistake, component spacing matters a lot. Why is that? You’ll find several reasons. One of those is that without the appropriate amount of spacing, you lack room for wire routing. Another challenge is that those components create heat, and the closer they’re packed, the more heat builds up in the board. In some cases, that might be enough to compromise the board material itself, particularly if you’re using something like FR-4 rather than a material designed to handle high levels of heat.

Speaking of Heat…

Heat will always be a problem, but it is not insurmountable. One quick tip to help you get around high-heat-related issues is to add extra copper around surface mount components. This creates additional surface area and helps dissipate more heat, faster, effectively turning a portion of the PCB design into a heatsink.

Shrink Your Components

Struggling with an unrouteable board? Use smaller components. By going with a smaller footprint, you leave more room for copper traces to pass each component. Proper spacing is easier to maintain with smaller components, too, helping you avoid overcrowding the board and the other problems that go hand in hand with stacking components too close to one another.

What should you do? While quad flat package components might be your first option, you might want to consider going with ball grid array components, instead. Of course, there is a trade-off here – smaller components make repair work more challenging.

Play Tetris

Does the following situation sound familiar? You’re staring at your PCB design, struggling to fit each component in and route traces between them. No matter where you put them, you’re left with problems, particularly if the board is smaller.

The answer? Play a game of Tetris with your components. Rotate them and find the best arrangement that allows you to route traces directly between them while maximizing the use of space across the entire board. This can take some time and effort, but it’s well worth the minimal investment you’ll make.

Pay Attention to Arrangement

Sometimes, rotating your components is simply not enough. When that happens, it’s important to come at the situation with a bit of strategy in terms of component arrangement. How, though?

• Cascaded Components: Cascaded components play a vital role in many PCB design options. However, they can be challenging to arrange correctly. Keep them near one another, and make sure that they are in sequence on the board. That will immediately remove the challenge of trying to route traces all across the board to connect cascaded components located in different areas.

• Consolidate: Why use multiple smaller resistors when a single higher resistance one will work better? Consolidating your design ensures that there’s more room for components and traces, as resistors will take up less of your available space.

• Cascade from the Edge: When laying out your PCB design, identify any component that must be attached via an edge connector. Locate those components as close to the connector as you can. The rest of the chain should cascade away from that point, grouped into functional blocks near one another and in sequence.

Go Denserdesign software

If you are struggling with PCB design, chances are good that the space required for traces, vias, and clearance is a problem. You can get around that by going denser. With HDI, you can create very dense boards with very dense traces, clearances, and vias that still deliver performance. However, you do need to consider controlled impedance routing, differential pairs, and check creepage, clearance, and width when it comes to high-current and high-voltage design.

Watch the Noise

Signal noise can be problematic when it comes to some traces. However, placing high-frequency signal carrying traces too close together can couple those signals, ratcheting up the noise and possibly creating problems with traces where no noise is desired. Make sure that you keep noisy traces away from analog traces to avoid this problem.

A Helping Hand

As you can see, there are many considerations to make when it comes to PCB design. If you’re struggling to get it right, we can help. At Advanced Circuits, we have decades of experience working with clients ranging from individuals to Fortune 500 companies and helping them bring their PCB designs to life. From our groundbreaking design software to our production capabilities, we have a solution no matter what your needs might be. Contact us today to schedule your consultation or to learn more about our capabilities and services.

However, from the materials available to heat resistance, from transfer rates to size, circuit boards have evolved a great deal over time. They also continue to change as our demands do. Not sure what that change might look like as we move forward? Let’s take a few minutes to explore some of the most important current and emerging trends in circuit board design.

Medical Devices

One of the most notable trends today is the spike in demand for medical devices. These run the gamut from hospital and medical clinic equipment like ventilators to devices used by EMTs and paramedics and those designed for consumer use. Circuit board design for medical devices must meet stringent requirements in terms of safety, reliability, heat resistance, and more.

Wearable Devices

From medical devices to fitness trackers, there’s a massive shift toward wearable devices. These must contend with a broad range of stressors that other devices do not face, although mobile devices, such as smartphones, come close in some cases. These factors range from dramatically decreased footprints to how to safely discharge heat and even water resistance in some cases.

Embedded Antennas

Today’s low-profile electronics demand something more than massive mast antennas, and designers have offered up embedded antennas right in the circuit board. Of course, this requires some advanced materials and unique design considerations to ensure full functionality. They play a role in Wi-Fi enabled devices, IoT devices, and much more.

Lead-Free Designs

Another important trend is the shift away from lead-containing laminates. Lead has played a role in circuit board design for decades, but it appears to be slowly falling by the wayside. Why, though? It’s largely to do with the higher heat levels that some of today’s devices must contend with, which would reduce lead to a toxic puddle at the bottom of the device. New lead-free laminate materials are being introduced to cope with those high heat levels and maintain their structural integrity at all times (not to mention eliminating those toxic fumes).

High-Power Boards

Just as circuit board designs must contend with higher heat levels than ever before, they are also being designed for higher and higher power levels (which also affects heat, of course). Most of these boards are above 48 volts, and they can be found in a wide range of applications. Many of them harness solar power, while others are intended for use within electric vehicles. IoT devices, battery-powered devices, and those with additional components – all of these are high-power applications.

The Growing Role of IoT Devices

As touched on above, IoT devices are having a profound impact on circuit board design. One interesting trend here is that the PCB industry is expanding. In the past, it was largely focused on consumer electronics. Today, that is still the case, but there is a growing focus on serving industrial needs because this is where the vast majority of IoT devices can be found. While Alexa, Siri, Ring doorbells and the like are all being integrated into homes, the real demand is within the manufacturing and industrial sector where entire production lines are now integrating internet connectivity and being networked together.

Not only does this mean that there is an increasing demand for circuit board design and manufacturing, but that PCB designers face some unique challenges. One of those is the change in what “protection” and “security” mean. Previously, it was really all about protecting the circuit board against environmental changes. Today, though, it is becoming more about prevention against tampering.

Flex and Rigid Flex

Previously, both flex and rigid-flex boards were relatively rare in the PCB world. Today, that’s increasingly not the case. That’s due to a couple of the trends that we have already discussed. One of those is the rise of medical devices – ideally suited for flexible circuit boards. However, flex boards are also well-suited for consumer electronics, for use in a range of different sensors connected to IoT devices, and even medical implants.

On the other hand, rigid-flex boards combine the benefits of both flexible circuit board design and rigid boards. The result is a board that “plays well with others,” which makes these well-suited for use as sub-boards and for creating additional layers.

Waste Control

Waste is a growing problem. This is particularly true of e-waste. Finding ways to deal with the growing mountain of disposed-of electronics is a challenge, but one option is to use biodegradable circuit boards. Biodegradable PCBs offer some light at the end of the tunnel and a way to start greening up the industry. While workable circuit board designs using biodegradable materials are still some way off, they are coming. It will require the design of new substrates, as well as a shift away from chemical-based etching processes in many cases.

A Full-Service PCB Manufacturer

From IoT devices to wearables to future-looking technology, Advanced Circuits delivers critical capabilities. With over 30 years of experience, our team helps bring circuit board designs to life on any scale. We understand that each client’s needs are different, and we’re happy to produce everything from a single prototype to massive production runs. We work with clients in the defense industry, IoT, automotive technology, and virtually every other sector, as well.

Advanced Circuits: Your Go-to PCB Manufacturing & Assembly Resource

Whether you need end-to-end assistance, or just want to create a test board to explore your designs, we can help. With the best turnaround time in the industry; weekend turns; same day turns and more, it’s no wonder our clients keep choosing Advanced Circuits for everything from prototype PCBs to large PCBs runs. Contact us today for an instant quote or to learn more about our capabilities.

As the end of 2014 approaches, electronics professionals start to take a look at what 2015 will bring in terms of new consumer trends and areas of focus in the industry. Printed circuit board technology is allowing product designers and engineers to introduce new computers, smartphones and wearables that have greater performance levels than ever before. Based on sales numbers this year and the growing buzz around consumer electronics that are in the pipeline, forecasters expect varied levels of success for the industry in the year ahead. According to TrendForce and as reported by Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine, notebook computer shipments will grow 0.6% in 2015 while table shipments will decline 3.5%. This may be due to a number of factors, including:

• Organizations in the market to update workplace computers and laptops
• Updated software and features for notebooks offer something new for consumers
• “Phablets” pushing for more market share
• Notebook prices are lower, creating more direct competition

Opportunities for Printed Circuit Board Designers

The benefit of looking ahead at emerging market trends is that a printed circuit board designer can anticipate consumer demand for certain products and features. This way, organizations can incorporate the information into their research and development processes to ensure that they remain on the forefront of the industry. Whether it is with smartwatches, smartphones or notebooks, understanding the technological capabilities in front of you and taking steps to deliver for your consumers help ensure your continued growth moving forward. To learn more about the latest developments in printed circuit boards, contact an expert at Advanced Circuits today.

Source

1. Drysdale, Chelsey, “Report: Tablet Shipments to Decline 3.5% in 2015,” Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine, 1 December 2014, Web, 10 December 2014.

Advanced Circuits Discusses Negatives of Via Tenting

While via tenting can be an effective way to cover the via holes on your PCB, small amounts of fluid could remain trapped in the barrel of the via hole after the soldermask is applied. This can happen during the surface finish process, for example. As such, it is best to provide a small pinhole in the tent to allow any solution to escape the hole. However, the tent/breaker option remains cost effective and does not require additional processing steps during production. Learn more by talking with an expert at Advanced Circuits today.

Explore the Capabilities of Advanced Circuits

When you are designing your PCBs, it is important that you get the functionality and quality you need for your application. You can see a full list of PCB capabilities online or by connecting with an expert at Advanced Circuits.  Contact a representative today to learn more about your options and the benefits of using Advanced Circuits’ free PCB Artist layout software.