Lead-Free Solder Versus Leaded Solder in Assembly Two families of solder alloy dominate electronics assembly, and the choice between them affects the thermal profile, the joint appearance, the reliability model and the mix of materials the supply chain will accept. Since lead is toxic and its use in electronics is…
Board Outline and Mounting Design for PCB Layout Layout is usually described as an electrical discipline, but a large part of it is mechanical. The board has to fit inside an enclosure, be held in place, accept connectors that align with openings, and survive the assembly process. Every one of…
Electroplating Additives in PCB Copper Deposition Plating is the step that turns a pattern of isolated copper features into a connected circuit, and it is the step most likely to be blamed when a board fails an electrical test. Copper that is missing inside a hole, or present where it…
Ground Current Paths and Second Harmonic Distortion An amplifier datasheet can promise distortion figures in parts per million and still perform badly on a real board. The reason is usually not the device but the copper underneath it. High-current output stages deliver large, rapidly changing currents into a load, and…
Layer Stackup Design: One Layer to Eight Layers The stackup is the foundation of the whole design and the one decision that cannot be repaired later. A routing mistake can be fixed with a patch or a rework, an impedance error can sometimes be trimmed with a resistor, but a…
PCB Design Principles for EMI Suppression Electromagnetic compatibility is not a layer of varnish applied at the end of a project. It is a set of physical decisions taken during layout, and by the time the board is fabricated the opportunity to influence most of them has passed. Two coupling…
Copper Flooding: Mesh or Solid, and How to Handle Ground Islands Filling the empty area of a board with copper is one of the oldest habits in layout, and like most habits it is sometimes applied without much thought. A pour is not decoration and it is not a free…
Escape Routing Rules: Trace Width, Angles and Pad Fanout Layout has two halves: deciding where the components go, and getting the copper out of them. The second half is where most manufacturability problems are created, because the escape from a pad is the moment when a designer commits to a…
Power Plane Splitting: Width Rules and Clearance Limits Every multilayer board with more than one supply rail faces the same decision: whether to give each rail its own copper plane, or to share one plane and route the secondary rails as traces. The answer is not a matter of taste.…
PCB Pad Design Standards for Reliable Solder Joints A pad is the smallest functional element on a printed circuit board and the one with the least room for improvisation. It carries no signal logic, no impedance requirement and no current calculation in most cases, yet an error in its geometry…












