Switching Regulator PCB Design - Phil's Lab #60

How to layout and route a switching regulator (buck converter in this example) using Altium Designer. Best practices, tips, and guidelines to minimise noise, EMI, etc.

[SUPPORT]

[LINKS]

[TIMESTAMPS]
00:00 EM Test Board

00:46 JLCPCB and Git Repo
01:30 Altium Designer Free Trial

01:49 Buck Converter Resources
02:23 Buck Converter Topology and Loops
06:12 General Layout and Routing Rules

08:48 Schematic
09:57 Layout
17:32 Routing

24:34 Outro

ID: QIBvbJtYjWuHiTG0uCoK

[gkelly]

Every video of yours is an absolute delight. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share your knowledge!

[cornevanzyl]

I've started watching your videos about 4 year's ago and I think the way you've addressed the gap in the market is brilliant. The quality of your work is excellent 👌

[joet]

Great video.
Really appreciated the structure:
Overview —> Theory —> Design principles —> Step by step implementation with well explained reasoning
Thanks and I look forward to watching more of your videos.
Subscribed

[siegmundeurades]

A year or so ago I was tasked with designing a basic boost converter as part of my studies. It worked, but I'm throughout the video I've definitely spotted many things I could've done better.

Thank you for making such thorough videos while still keeping it enternaining.

[Kefford]

Phil your videos are so good! I’ve implemented a few buck regulators myself but I still watched every second of this start to finish.
Looking forward to seeing the comparison between ideal and non-ideal layouts 😄

[pnbeztn]

Good video, it exactly indicates how we make a good layout on an regulator as long as we understand where the high di/dt, and dv/dt loop exist.

[bartek]

Phil, each video gets better and better. Quality time watching them mate

[AaronQian]

Thank you for making this video. It is very helpful. I made a switching regulator circuit similar to this one in EasyEDA, but since I'm just an amateur, I had no idea if I was doing it correctly. Your video has helped me to verify that my design choices are mostly correct. I also would love to learn about thermal management of PCB with regards to switching regulators. In my design, the switching regulator is designed to have max 3A continuous current. However, I was only able to feed 3A for about 2 minutes before hitting thermal shut off. The PCB, inductor, switching regulators were very hot after that. Would love to learn more about how to fix this kind of issues.

[Phil]

Kudos Phil, your content is superb, every video is a must watch for any design engineer

[albertoprogida]

Brilliant idea for a series! Looking forward to seeing the next videos using probes. Would be really interested about how big an impact EMI shields/ cans make to radiated interference!

[peterlaidlaw]

You are my 5-star on my successful design/build journey; thanks very much. On my recent design I used a Ricoh RP605 switch in a low power RF design. I learned a lesson: Its a DFN package and found that with hotpad or airgun soldering its really difficult to ensure that the chip centers itself properly because the big (relatively) thermal ground pad in the middle is so close to the edge connections. The fix required a 2nd revision of the board with a slightly smaller ground pad. My lesson: beware of accepting the stock pad layout!

[andrewward]

Everything I needed to know plus more. Excellent vid, thanks for the effort!

[mursalaboobacker]

Brilliant sir, your videos must reach at highest level ana also every videos tells something more valuable in pcb design

[TYGAMatt]

Very informative. Thank you Sir. I'm currently developing a 12V - 300V flyback and your info is most helpful.

[msanterre]

I loved this video! I'm always a bit uncertain when it comes to power design on my PCBs and I typically use LDOs, but after watching this I might try out a buck converter instead for better efficiency.

[hupaa]

Great vid. Thank you! Looking forward to see the comparison in the next videos.

[TheSimon]

Thanks for an excellent video, Phil. Looks like I'll be re-routing my PCB yet again :) Looking forward to see the difference in EMI that the spectrum analyzer shows.

[wyattr]

Im going to do my first switcher layout this week, perfect timing

[jagadishk]

TI has a wonderful application note on this topic, same points were stressed there too.. like keeping the switching node area as least as possible..

[_a_x_s_]

Thanks for the video. Now I finally know how the reference design in the datasheet suggests such a similar layout.