PCB DESIGN

PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD LAYOUT GUIDELINES, SOFTWARE,
TRACE CALCULATORS, TUTORIALS, AND ASSEMBLY INFO

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Printed circuit board (PCB) is a component made of one or more layers of insulating material with electrical conductors. The insulator is typically made on the base of fiber reinforced resins, ceramics, plastic, or some other dielectric materials. During manufacturing, the portions of conductors that are not needed are etched off, leaving printed circuits that connect electronic components.

Currently the main generic standard for the design of printed circuit boards, regardless of materials, is IPC-2221A. Whether a PCB board is single-sided, double-sided or multilayer, this standard provides rules for manufacturability and quality such as requirements for material properties, criteria for surface plating, conductor thickness, component placement, dimensioning and tolerance rules, and more. For a specific technology, the designer can then choose the appropriate sectional standard from the IPC-2220 series. For power conversion devices, additional parameters are recommended by IPC-9592.

The width of the circuit conductors should be chosen based on the maximum temperature rise at the rated current and the acceptable impedance. The spacing between the PC traces is determined by peak working voltage, the coating and the product application. The minimum possible widths of the traces and of the spacing between them are both limited by the manufacturing capabilities of your fabricator and in any case should not be less than 2 mils. Typical minimum values are 6/6 mils. Depending on the application and product end use, other standards may also apply. For example, for mains-powered or battery-powered information technology equipment, the creepage and clearance requirements of IEC/UL 60950-1 shall take precedence over IPC.

IPC and other standards do not tell you how to properly route the board. Good PCB layout techniques require an understanding of the effects of non-zero trace impedance and the coupling of signals from one circuit to another through parasitic capacitances and radio transmission, as well as a basic understanding of circuit operation. Auto-routing may be done for most parts of control circuits, but power, ground and high di/dt circuits should be routed by hand.

Here you will find guidelines for designing PCB, links to software downloads, trace calculators and other info, tools and online resources.

FIND PCB PRODUCTS AND SERVICES BY SPEC

PCB DESIGN GUIDELINES, RULES AND TIPS

FREE PCB DESIGN SOFTWARE, TOOLS, DEMOs DOWNLOADS

PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD TRACE CALCULATORS

Basic guide and tips for designing PCB layout of SMPS power circuits

The clearance between the PC traces based on voltage levels

IPC-2221 clearance recommendations

Books on power electronics and circuit board layout

EMI and layout fundamentals for SMPS switched-mode circuits

Layout guidelines for switching power supplies and regulators

Printed circuit board designing and manufacturing overview

Circuit board design rules (size, trace width, SMT footprints)

PCB Design tutorial - base materials, calculators, guidelines

PC trace fusing current

Schematics capture & free PCB design software (working evaluation for small designs)

Free CAD program with PSPICE (functional limited size demo)

Free printed circuit board layout software download (GNU/Linux).

GERBV - free gerber file viewer

Merlin PCB Designer - freeware for CorelDRAW

PRINTED BOARD PROTOTYPING, MANUFACTURING, CIRCUIT ASSEMBLY

PC-A-610D preview- Acceptability of printed circuit board assembly

Circuit Board Repair and rework guide

Trace width calculator for external and internal layers

A collection of calculators and PCB design tools

IPC-7351 land pattern viewer and tools (replaced IPC-SM-782)

Track and via current carrying capacity calculators

ELECTRONIC AND SAFETY STANDARDS

PCB LAYOUT JOBS

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