International Journal of Electrical and Electronics Research ISSN 2348-6988 (online)

Vol. 6, Issue 3, pp: (1-3), Month: July - September 2018, Available at: www.researchpublish.com

Understanding the parts of PCB Layout

1
Pravin Bhadane, 2Suchita Bhangale, 3Aparna Lal
Department of Electronics, Nowrosjee Wadia College, Pune-1

Abstract: Different parts of PCB layout have been studied for understanding their functions and use in PCB
designing. PCB is an essential part of electronic circuit board on which electronic components are mounted. The
main studied parts are pads, tracks, layers, mask, and silk screen. Some issues about the physical design of PCB
such as chassis dimensions, location of input/output connectors, chassis mounting points, component parameters –
size, heat dissipation have been studied. Present study is helpfulto the beginners as well as to the under graduate
students of Electronics.
Keywords: footprint, heat sink, layer, pad, silk screen, track.

I. INTRODUCTION
PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board that connects circuit components. Blank PCB is called a copper clad which contains
insulating substrate with conducting surface. Common materials for substrate is either paper phenolic or glass epoxy and
it is coated with a conducting layer typically made up of thin copper foil of thickness less than 0.1mm. The unwanted
copper is removed from the substrate by a chemical process known as etching, leaving only the desired copper traces or
pathways also called as tracks. Generally itching is done by dipping the PCB in a chemical bath containing 20% solution
of ferric chloride. Sometimes few drops of concentrated hydrochloric acid is added in a bath for catalysis purpose.[1]

II. PARTS OF PCB

Main Parts of PCB layout are pads, tracks, vias, footprint, copper layer, solder mask, silk screen. These parts corresponds
to the actual electronic components of the circuit. The commonly required electronic components are connectors, discrete
and integrated circuit devices. Main parts of layout are shown in TABLE 1. Pad is a rectangular or circular shaped metal
surface and it consist of inner and outer diameter. It is a location that connects terminals of discrete components or pins of
IC. Pads are connected to each other by tracks. Tracks are essentially the wiring of the PCB, equivalent to wire of
conducting signals. Power and ground tracks are usually wider than signal track. Sometimes in multilayered PCB tracks
cross the layer through via. Where via is a pad with plated hole connecting tracks from one layer of the board to other
layer.Physically ,via is a hole on a PCB which consists of two pads in corresponding positions on top and bottom layers of
the board, that are electrically connected by a „hole‟ through the board. It is made conductive by printing through hole
(PTH) some metallic material usually tin by electroplating process.Each electronic component has more than one terminal
or pin for external connections and to connect them to other components of the circuit some arrangement on PCB is
required, such an arrangement used to physically attach a component to PCB is called as footprint
Layers are the top and bottom side surfaces of PCB. Components are usually mounted on the top side and soldered to the
pads on the bottom layer of PCB. Such PCB is called as single sided PCB which has solder layer only on bottom side.
Some PCB have solder layer on both sides which are called double sided PCB (DSP) and they are much more expensive
than single sided one. Vias are required to join the tracks of two sides of DSP. Sometimes, signal wires overlap each other
and make unwanted connection. Jumper is a piece of wire that is used to avoid the overlap. Jumpers are minimized by use
of DSP. The tracks of the solder layer may be covered with polymer resist solder mask coating to protect them from
corrosion. Printing readable information about component part number and functional blocks on the solder mask is called
a silk screen. It is helpful for assembling, testing and servicing the circuit board. [2]

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Research Publish Journals
 International Journal of Electrical and Electronics Research ISSN 2348-6988 (online)
Vol. 6, Issue 3, pp: (1-3), Month: July - September 2018, Available at: www.researchpublish.com

III. SOME ISSUE ON PHYSICAL DESIGN OF LAYOUT

The main design issues are chassis dimensions, location of input/output connectors, chassis mounting points, component
parameters – size, heat dissipation, electric and magnetic field produced by them, etc. Chassis is a metal frame on which
the circuit board and other supporting components are mounted. PCB dimensions should be appropriate so that it should
fit in the chassis. The mounting holes on PCB should match with the chassis holes. The input connectors are generally
mounted on front side or back side of the PCB, whereas output connector is usually on the front side. Some high power
components dissipate more heat and to remove it safely there is a need of more surface area. The supporting element
known as heat sink is a thick metal plate commonly used to provide more surface area to the components so that it
dissipates heat off the component. The heat sink size depends on the amount of heat dissipated by components.Generally,
heat sink is mounted on the back side of chassis.
Physical size of component must be considered for making PCB, which depends on wattage and voltage rating. Bulky and
heavy components such as transformer and relay are generally not mounted on the PCB but they are placed on the chassis
away from the PCB. Oscillators and clock are the common parts of any PCB. Sometimes they generate high frequency
signal which induces some parasitic effect in the circuit board such as shunt capacitance, series inductance, inductive and
capacitive coupling. The parasitic shunt capacitance bypasses the desired signal from the circuit. Similarly series
inductance opposes the necessary signal. The capacitive and inductive coupling adds noise in the signal and reduces the
signal to noise ratio. Hence PCB designer should take care of high frequency components and preferably he should place
such components away from rest of the components. And if possible use technique such as shielding and grounding to
minimize the effect of high frequency signals.[3]
TABLE I: PARTS OF PCB LAYOUT

Name Shape Use Implementation

Select pad of required size

Provides soldering
Pad from the library and place it
space
at destination

Select „wire‟ tool and click to

Copper path for joining
Track source pad and drag it to the
the pads
destination

Flat plain for mounting Select a layer of choice from

Layer
and soldering menu

Select „wire‟ tool and draw

some part of track on one
Connects pads of two
Via layer and then switch to the
layers
another, continue to draw
remaining part of track

Connects pads in the Use a normal multi strand or

Jumper
absence of track single strand wire

Select footprint of
physically attach a
Footprint component from library and
component to a PCB
place it at destination

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 International Journal of Electrical and Electronics Research ISSN 2348-6988 (online)
Vol. 6, Issue 3, pp: (1-3), Month: July - September 2018, Available at: www.researchpublish.com

Not used region of Use inbuilt copper pour tool

Copper pour layer is filled with and draw the copper pour
copper region on the layer

Text printed on the Select „text‟ option and write

Silk screen
layer the abbreviated text

IV. CONCLUSION
PCB is a necessary part of electronic circuit design which works like a substrate for mounting the electronic components.
It has advantages such as mass production and longer life. Pads, tracks, vias and layers are the parts required for making
of PCB. Jumpers and mounting holes are also necessary parts of the PCB. The parasitic effects produced by high
frequency components such as shunt capacitance and inductive coupling should be minimized by appropriate use of
different parts of PCB.

V. FUTURE SCOPE
The present article is about the basic parts of layout which provides information to the beginners. This includes the
common parts of layout which are used in almost all PCB layout softwares. Further we would like to study the use of
some PCB software for making layout of electronic circuit. The procedure of making of PCB layout will be presented in
the next part of this series of articles.
REFERENCES
[1] Kraig Mitzner, “Complete PCB Design Using OrCAD Capture and Layout,” Elsevier, Armsterdam, 2007, pp.2.
[2] Walter C Bosshart, “Printed Circuit Board Design and Technology”,1st ed., McGraw Hill Education, 1984.
[3] David Reusch and Johan Strydom, “Understanding the Effect of PCB Layout on Circuit Performance in a High-
Frequency Gallium-
[4] Nitride-Based Point of Load Converter”, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol 29(4), 2014.

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