Practical RF Hardware and PCB Design Tips - Phil's Lab #19

Some tips for when designing hardware and PCBs with simple RF sections and components. These concepts have aided me well when designing 4-layer embedded systems PCBs.

Topics: critical trace lengths, stackups, controlled impedance traces (microstrip, stripline), impedance discontinuities due to wide pads, clearances, bias tees.

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[TIMESTAMPS]
00:00 Introduction
00:27 JLCPCB
00:53 Overview
02:08 Critical length
06:45 Stackup
08:51 Controlled impedance traces
12:34 Impedance discontinuities (pad-to-trace)
14:34 Clearance
15:17 Antenna bias tees

ID: QIBvbJtYjWuHiTG0uCoK

[martinkjellstrand]

JLCPCB adding connectors is actually a really cool thing!

[siyi-fu]

Two more tips I picked up from designing mil/aero RF boards
1. Grounded coplanar waveguide is extremely useful for tuning RF amplifiers. Just scrape away soldermask to add shunt tuning components to GND.
2. Another tip for tuning. If you require an L or C, two in parallel will decrease parasitic inductance and possibly improve performance. For example, if you need a 4 pF shunt cap, get two 8 pF and butt them end to end with them meeting at your trace. Of course, they need really low impedance connections (i.e. via in pad) to a GND plane for this to work well.

[razorr]

Simply Awesome. Sharing knowledge with the world makes your channel Awesome. One of the youtube gems.

[wazzupweek]

Phil’s lab made me wants to create my own lab

[anneallison]

Thank you very much for this and for sharing your experience!! You are gold

[yor]

I've been looking for a video explaining this content for 3 years now! Thank you

[schultzbach]

KiCAD RF tools is a great plugin for RF designs. Thanks for the video Phil!

[dehCremus]

Hi Phil, coming Monday I start my graduation assignment at a company. The assignment is designing a PCB and writing its firmware. I have to say that your videos really are a treat and are great for refreshing my knowledge!

Also, KiCad 6 is almost releasing! In case you didn't know.

[satviksharma]

This video is really really good. Your videos give me a lot of confidence to design my own boards. Thank you!

[zhitailiu]

My favorite 4-layer board stack-up is (SIG/PWR, GND, GND, SIG/PWR). I've learned this also from Rick Hartley.
Great video, thanks!

[t-strokes]

Great video! I've done a bit of research on trace discontinuities, and in an article published by Minicircuits, trace/pad discontinuities can impact your VSWR. One solution is to reduce the size of your pad, though this may make soldering a bit more difficult. I'm dealing with VSWR and insertion loss issues on a design I'm working on.

[anelson]

What a great, concise guide to working with RF. A fair amount of this happened to be review for me, but the bit near the end about estimating the inductor value on the tee was a facepalm moment for me, as I realized an LTE design I'm working on could have been - and now will be - simpler and cleaner. Totally makes sense. Thanks.

[byronwatkins]

Component pads with rounded corners are also usually available to smooth out impedance mismatches between traces and pads.

[jakobhalskov]

Your videos are so helpful and well made - really appreciate the time you put into this. So, THANKS!

[TheNewKill]

Amazingly clear and practical tips!

Please do the same for the ESD design. I am very curious how to handle that properly.

[MrHeninsh]

I didn't saw your last 3 videos! Tomorrow I shoul take a popcorn and lay down!

[jairorodriguezblanco]

Incredibly good video, very helpful. Thanks a lot Phil!

[arunasharma]

Love your content. I wish, I can use this knowledge for my project, practically. Unfortunately, struggle is always time and resources .. economic or otherwise.

[jasontoo]

Amazing. Keep spitting truth, don't swallow.

[tntodorov]

Hey Phil, great video! Would you please consider making another one about making PCB antennas design (in KiCad) and choosing values for the PI matching network, and various types of PI networks. Like for example the EPS32 PCB antennas... That would be great!