How do you conduct a thorough PCB design review?

PCB design review

Printed circuit boards are the backbone of our interconnected, electronic world. Their complexity is a testament to engineering precision and innovation. But they can also be a source of frustration and delay when they don’t work correctly. How do you ensure the quality of a PCB design? Several factors contribute to the successful operation of a PCB, from its fabrication to its assembly. One key step is a thorough PCB design review.

A thorough pcb design review is a critical part of catching errors, decreasing board spins, and getting the product to market faster. However, there’s a lot of pressure to complete a project fast, so how do you conduct a thorough design review? The key is to optimize the process so it can run as smoothly as possible.

The best way to do this is by using a DRC engine (design rule checker). This is an integrated part of many PCB layout applications and can automatically inspect the PCB for common mistakes like signal loops, uncapped vias, and shorted tracks. It also checks mechanical items for proper placement and clearances.

How do you conduct a thorough PCB design review?

Using an engine for your design review can eliminate some of the frustrations associated with sharing and consolidating feedback. Often, feedback is shared through long email chains and screenshots, and it’s laborious to consolidate and track all the changes. It’s also hard to ensure that all the feedback has been incorporated, which can result in faulty prototypes.

Once the PCB design is finalized, it needs to be sent to the contract manufacturer for fabrication. But even with the best processes, it’s not uncommon for the first prototypes to have errors. If these errors aren’t caught early, they can delay the product’s launch and negatively impact the customer experience.

Another important step is ensuring that the design meets all the manufacturing standards set by the contract manufacturer. This can include determining the thickness of the copper layers, ensuring that there’s a ground plane, and checking for floating copper pours. It’s also important to check for adequate routing space for high-speed digital signals and clocks, as well as to make sure that there are decoupling capacitors in place.

Another great way to ensure a manufacturability-ready design is to compare the circuits in the schematic with any application circuits found in component datasheets. This can help spot errors in the layout and prevent them from causing problems during assembly.