A Great PCB Engineer Should Have The Following Knowledge Framework

PCB design is a very important link in the design of electronic products, it is an important carrier of electronic products. A good PCB should not only look good, but also meet the requirements of high cost performance, good electrical performance, high stability and reliability, easy production and maintenance, and easy certification. According to some technology bosses, a good PCB engineer should have the following knowledge framework:

1. Familiar with at least one major EDA tool in the industry

There are many PCB design software. Currently, the following four software are mainly used in the market: CADENCE ALLEGRO and MENTOREE, Mentorpads, Altium Designer, Protel, etc., among which CadenceAllegro has the highest market share.

Allegro has many advantages, such as friendly software operation interface, response speed block, high operation efficiency, rich secondary development function, perfect rule manager function, high-speed design exclusive function and so on.

Its support for large projects is good, will not greatly reduce the response speed because of the design scale increase, with Allegro to do tens of thousands of PIN design projects basically will not have too much pressure, so for the communication industry, commercial server, and industrial control, military industry is very suitable.

2. Familiar with devices, understand circuit schematic diagram, and recognize key signals

Common electronic components: resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, diodes, transistors, field effect tubes, optocoupler (OC), sensors, crystal oscillators, relays, buzzers, rectifier bridge stack, filters, switches, fuses, etc.

Key signals include: power supply, simulation signal, high-speed signal, clock signal, differential signal, synchronous signal, etc.

3. Familiar with the manufacturing process and technology of several common board and circuit board factories

Commonly used boards: cardboard, half glass fiber board, FR-4 glass fiber board, aluminum substrate, etc.

4. Familiar with the installation process and process of the patch plug-in

Main understanding of SMT, THT, etc.

5. Familiar with welding test

The weldability test is generally used for a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the weldability of components, printed circuit boards, solders and fluxes. In the assembly welding process of electronic products, the welding quality directly affects the quality of the whole machine.

Therefore, in order to improve the welding quality, in addition to strictly controlling the process parameters, it is also necessary to conduct scientific weldability tests for printed circuit boards and electronic components.

6. Have a certain understanding of SI/PI knowledge

With the increase of the output switching speed of integrated circuit and the increase of PCB density, signal integrity (SI) has become one of the problems that must be concerned in the design of high-speed digital PCB. Parameters of components and PCB boards, layout of components on PCB boards, wiring of high-speed signals and other factors can cause signal integrity problems, resulting in unstable system operation, or even complete failure. How to fully consider the factor of signal integrity in the design process of PCB board and take effective control measures has become a hot topic in PCB design industry.

With the development trend of high power consumption, high density, high speed, large current and low voltage of electronic system, the problem of power supply integrity (PI) in the field of high speed PCB design has become more and more serious. An excellent PCB design engineer, of course, needs to have a certain understanding of SI/PI knowledge, which can be used to guide the optimization of PCB design, improve the design of power channels, optimize the design of decoupling capacitors, etc.

7. Have a deep understanding of EMC/EMI knowledge of PCB designed products

As is known to all, the design of PCB should comprehensively consider many factors such as function realization, cost, production technology, EMC and aesthetics.

With the continuous improvement of the frequency of electronic signal and processor in electronic equipment, electronic system has become a complex equipment that contains multiple components and many sub-systems. High density and high speed will increase the radiation of the system, while low pressure and high sensitivity will reduce the immunity of the system.

Therefore, electromagnetic interference (EMI) is really a threat to the safety, reliability and stability of electronic equipment. When we design electronic products, PCB board design is very important to solve EMI problem.