About the Training Course

Modern RF and wireless product design is a highly complex engineering task and the design and layout of the PCB is critical to success. The PCB often contains circuits with conflicting requirements - for example extremely sensitive analogue stages such as RF receivers alongside extremely noisy blocks such as digital processors. The performance of RF components and the PCB substrate also set boundaries on what can be achieved in modern designs. This intensive one-day RF Training course provides a thorough introduction to the principles of RF PCB design techniques in an intuitive and practical way.

Who is this training course for?

• RF engineers requiring a system level view of PCB design.
• RF PCB designers.
• Design engineers and technical managers requiring an overview of the principles of PCB design for RF applications.
• Designers and those with some RF experience but little formal training who wish to broaden their design skill base.
• Baseband and signal processing designers who need to be aware of RF issues.

Training Course Content

• Introduction

  • The challenges of modern RF PCB design.

  Analogue RF Systems

  • Overview of blocks and components found in analogue section of RF systems
  • Case study: A modern radio receiver
    • - Operation, susceptibility to degradation

  Digital RF Systems

  • Overview of blocks and components found in digital section of RF systems
  • Case study: A modern radio receiver (continued)
    • - Operation, sources and characteristics of digital noise
    • - Impact of digital noise on radio performance
    • - How impact of digital noise varies from system to system

  How signals cross couple between circuits

  • Cross coupling by conduction and radiation
  • Minimising cross coupling, separation and screening techniques

  Minimising impact of digital noise

  • Origins of supply noise in digital CMOS circuits and its impact on circuit operation
  • Techniques to achieve optimum supply decoupling
  • Digital power plane - localised versus total board coverage
  • High speed digital signal routing techniques

  Performance and limitations of physical components

  • Lumped circuits, Ls, Rs, Cs, transistors, self resonance, Q, parasitics
  • Distributed circuits - microstrip, stripline, co-planar
  • Interconnect - ground and power planes, transmission lines, vias
  • Examples of simulated vs. real implementation

  PCB Technology

  • PCB technology capabilities (track, gap, vias)
  • Substrate materials, PTH, blind vias, buried vias
  • PCB stack-ups
  • Layer routing and component connections
  • Design tolerances and cost implications
  • Component assembly considerations
  • Testability

  CLICK HERE to see related BOOKS and Training Courses

  PCB layout

  • Decoupling
  • RF ground plane
  • Star earth configuration
  • Current loops

  Implementation

  • Case study: A modern radio receiver (continued)
    • - Labelling of schematics
    • - Design partitioning prior to layout
    • - Routing, order of doing it, guidelines

  Examples of potential layout problems

  
  

  *Attendees should note that there is a small overlap between parts of this course and the Practical RF/Microwave Design course. This is necessary to allow this course to run independently.

About the Lecturer

Tony Richards,
Senior Communications Technology Consultant, Plextek Ltd

Tony Richards is a Senior Technical Consultant with Plextek Ltd. He was recruited for his experience in analogue and RF IC design and has since worked on several single chip radio system developments for multinational silicon vendors such as National Semiconductors, Sony Semiconductors and Frontier Silicon. Tony has also worked on the development of wireless meter readings systems, WLAN PC cards, Bluetooth hands-free car-kits and inductive tagging systems for livestock. Most recently he has been developing a short-range proximity detection system based on inductive coupling.

Prior to joining Plextek Tony was technical project leader with Philips Consumer Communications, responsible for developing highly integrated digital receiver ICs. In 1989 he helped design Philips' first commercially available single chip direct conversion digital paging receiver. He also worked for Philips Research Labs in Eindhoven and for Philips Radio Communications Systems of Cambridge. Tony graduated from Loughborough University of Technology in 1977 with a BSc in Electrical & Electronic Engineering in 1977.

Steve Williamson,
Principal Engineer, Radio Sensing Group, Cambridge Consultants Ltd

Steve Williamson is a Principal Engineer in the Radio Sensing Group at Cambridge Consultants Ltd and has extensive experience in RF and microwave design. Prior to this he was Principal RF Design Engineer at Anritsu MMD-E Ltd.

Steve's work covers the whole range of the RF and microwave design spectrum, with particular involvement in the design of VCOs and synthesisers. Whilst working as a Senior Technical Consultant in the RF Integration Group at Plextek Ltd, he also worked on the development of various custom communication systems, several RFIC and MMIC designs and other projects including a multi-band GSM test set.

After graduating from Southampton University with a BEng(Hons) in Electronic Engineering, where he was sponsored by Marconi Radar Systems (Chelmsford), Steve returned to Marconi to become a member of their Microwave Design Team. Subsequent to this, Steve joined the RF Design Group at Philips - PMR (Cambridge) in 1995. Here he was involved in the design of the frequency generation used in the first TETRA handsets and base stations.