The hottest PCB Design Substack posts right now

You can easily add custom designs to the silk screen of your PCB in KiCad. It’s a simple process to import images, opening up creative possibilities for your designs.
Remember that KiCad only supports black and white for silk screen designs, so any colors or shades will need to be converted. This can affect how your graphics look when you import them.
To get the best results, it's helpful to turn off anti-aliasing in your graphics software. This way, what you see is what you get in KiCad, making it easier to control the final look.

Designing your own PCB allows for faster iteration on new designs compared to ordering custom circuit boards.
KiCad is a recommended tool for designing hobby PCBs due to its extensive library of footprints and open-source nature.
Consider important factors like component placement, trace widths, and manufacturing constraints for successful PCB layout.

Consider signal integrity for high speed lines in digital board design.
Use transmission line models for longer board lengths, and discrete elements for shorter lengths.
Understand propagation delay, transition time, and how to calculate when to use transmission line models.

When designing for high speeds, it's important to investigate the terrain, understand the influencing factors, and make informed decisions.
For differential transmission lines, attention to impedance match and signal attenuation is crucial for maintaining signal integrity.
Factors like coupling effects, dielectric thickness, solder mask, copper thickness, and material choice all play key roles in high-speed design outcomes.

Trace resistance is proportional to the number of squares it contains
The resistivity of a square of copper of 1-oz at 25 ºC is 500 μΩ
When designing for high currents, consider trace width, self-heating, IR drop, and vias

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