Guidelines for PCB Layout design In high speed analog designs, PCB layout plays a major role in deciding

circuit performance. The first step before attempting a PCB layout is to ensure that the schematic is complete in all respects. Some major points to consider include the following: 1. Placement of components The placement of a circuit on the board, location of individual components plays a crucial role. Input, output and power supply locations are typically defined first. Then placement of critical components is done, with respect to circuit and then board. Specifying the critical components placement and signal paths, ensures the proper working of the design from the beginning itself. 2. Power supply The electrical connections between the devices on the board must provide a solid pathway to the power system to guarantee a high degree of signal integrity. The purpose is to provide a low impedence path to ensure minimum voltage drop to the device. This can be aided by keeping via connections to a minimum. The power traces and vias should also be thoughtfully designed. Decoupling considerations Decoupling or bypass capacitors play a large role in device performance. The main role of bypass capacitors is to act as a local DC power supply to meet the demands of uctuating power rails and block unwanted noise going into or coming from the power plane, as well as the device generated switching noise and capacitive and inductive coupling from adjacent board level planes and traces. Inadequate sizing and improper locating of power supply decoupling capacitors can result in numerous board problems viz. power supply noise (i.e., high frequency noise and or droop). If the decoupling capacitor does not support the switching charge requirements of the device, the power supply must deliver the additional charge (i.e., current). These additional charging and subsequent discharge can cause undesirable uctuations. In all cases, it is the function of the decoupling capacitor to deliver the quick burst of energy, within a specied time element, without generating a noise pulse or an apparent voltage droop.

Bypass capacitor usage must take into account both a low ESR as well as the self-resonant frequency.They must be located as close as possible to the device power pins and run short, wide traces to vias when they are required. A large electrolytic capacitor (100uF) at power source. Keep the trace between device and the bypass capacitor as short as possible. A short, wide trace will produce a lower inductance and resistance. When capacitors are being selected for high-speed designs, care should be taken to choose capacitors based on their parasitic characteristics such as inductance and resistance. Local decoupling capacitors should have low-effective series resistance (ESR) and low-equivalent series inductance (ESL) while having a large enough capacitance value to supply current to the IC during switching. 3. Sampling Clock Sampling clock of the ADC shouldnt come from FPGA or DSP; It should be generated within the analog section and fed to ADC. Same clock should then be sent to FPGA for synchronization with proper buffering.
4. Grounding scheme

This is the most important part of a PCB design. Grounding is fundamental to the operation of any circuit. Some grounding techniques which are essential are: 1. Incorporate a ground plane, wherever possible. At least 75% of the area must be occupied by the solid ground plane. The more copper you have in your ground path, the lower the impedance. The ground plane can also act as a shield where sensitive signals cross 2. Run separate ground paths for critical parts of the circuit, back to the main filter capacitor(s). This is known as star grounding. Separate ground lines keep current and noise from one component from affecting other components. 3. If using a ground plane, utilise split plane techniques to give effective star grounding 4. Use multiple vias to decrease your trace impedance to ground 5. Power and ground should be run directly over each other, which reduces impedance and minimizes loop area.

6. Reducing the loop area by routing the return for the signal

underneath the signal trace is most effective way of dealing with this problem. Therefore, creating a ground plane is the most important thing to do (after floor planning) in laying out the PCB. 7. In order to maintain a low-impedance ground connection back to the system power supply, it is usually necessary to use more than one connector pin for ground, additional grounds will provide additional shielding as well as giving a lower-impedance supply ground connection. IT is recommended that 25%-40% of a connectors pins be dedicated to ground. Analog Vs Digital Designs Any circuit layout operating at high speeds with both analog and digital signals must have those signals physically separated to the maximum extent possible to avoid crosstalk. The Digital signal tracks must be as short as possible and should never run in parallel closely with an analog signal. Local tie ups between analog and digital grounds must be avoided. An analog-to-digital convertor is considered as an analog component in the design. Thus ADCs must be kept close to the analog section. In general, using ground planes is the best way to set up grounding systems for high-resolution ADCs, so that the ADC ground return paths are as low an impedance as possible. Where the use of ground planes is not possible, using wide, short traces for ground returns is recommended to keep the ground impedance low. Grounding analog Vs Digital A primary layout consideration is that the analog and digital ground planes should not overlap. To that end, they should both be on the same PC board layer, separated by at least 0.1 inch. The analog circuitry and the digital circuitry should likewise be separated, over their respective ground planes. The ground plane must be partitioned into two, as analog and digital ground planes. The analog and digital ground planes should be separate, but must be connected together at only one point; at the ADCs. By connecting the planes together at one point (a

bridge) and routing all the traces so that they cross at this bridge point, you will have provided a return path for the current directly underneath each of the traces (hence a very small loop area). (Rfr. Fig)

A PCB with a single ground plane, partitioned into analog and digital sections, and discipline in routing the signals can usually solve the problem. If the layout is done properly, the digital ground currents will remain in the digital section of the board and will not interfere with the analog signals. Analog ground plane noise voltages should be kept smaller than the minimum analog signal level of concern. In the case of an A/D (or D/A) converter the smallest resolvable signal voltage level [least significant bit (LSB)] is a function of the number of the bits and the full scale reference voltage of the A/D converter. (put the figure in your case). Also, the best designs have analog power planes and an analog ground plane that exactly overlap, and digital power planes and a digital ground plane that exactly overlap. The large overlap area of these power and ground planes, combined with their close spacing, makes a distributed capacitance, which will be more effective at suppressing high frequency noise than individual, lumped capacitors. This helps to keep the analog power planes and ground plane quiet.

Keeping the above points in view, the grounding scheme for the PCB designed for this project is shown in the fig.