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8 PCB Grounding Rules to Live Your Engineering Life By

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Grounding isn’t all that important, right? It’s just the foundation that we
build all of our electronic designs on. But what about those signals! The
truth is, grounding is the most important part of your entire design, and we
all tend to ignore it until it becomes a huge problem. Without a stable
ground, you’ll never pass clean signals from one device to another.

Maybe you’ve designed a digital device with some variance in your ground
and data can still move safely around. However, consider something like a
high-reliability medical system. If that device gets zapped with a high-
voltage ESD charge, you better hope you properly designed your ground. In
sensitive electronic designs such as these, proper grounding can mean the
difference between life and death.

Here are 8 PCB grounding rules to live your engineering life by, keep them in
your back pocket!

#1 – Leave nothing unattached

Nothing should remain unattached on your PCB layout. If there’s an open
space on your board, fill it with copper and vias to connect with your
ground plane. This will create a structured path for all of your signals to
efficiently get to ground.

#2 – Never slice up your ground layer

Most engineers working on four layer boards will have a dedicated ground
layer. This works great as long as you don’t route traces on this layer. Once
you do, you’ve effectively created a ground current loop. Keep your ground
layer whole at all times.

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This return path has gotten unwieldy

with a gapped plane. (Image source)

#3 – Always provide a common ground point

An electronics system, whether that’s a single or a multi-board system,
needs a single point for all grounds to come together. This might be the
metal frame on a chassis or a dedicated ground layer on your PCB. You’ll
commonly hear this referred to this common ground point as star
grounding.

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(Image source)

#4 – Minimize series vias

Be sure to minimize series vias on your ground paths and instead send
component grounds directly to your dedicated ground plane. The more vias
you add to your board the more impedance you have to deal with. This is
especially important for fast transient currents that can turn an impedance
path into a voltage differential.

#5 – Grounding before routing

A poorly designed ground puts your entire device at risk. The same can’t be
said for messing up a single signal. Be sure to properly design your ground
first before doing any routing. This will serve as the foundation for your
entire routing process.

#6 – Know where your currents are going

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Many designers only think about where their signal is traveling to, but every
signal has a return path to take through ground. Both the sending and
return path of your signal will have the same current which can affect power
stability and ground bounce. You can use Kirchhoff’s Current Law to
understand how current will travel through your circuit.

(Image source)

#7 – Plan for dynamic variance between grounds

Always plan for dynamic variance when sending ground connections
between boards in a multi-board system. This is especially true when
working on applications that require long-distance cables. For these
situations, you can use low voltage differential signals, optical isolators,
and common-mode chokes to keep variance under control.

#8 – Mind your mixed-signal floor planning

The analog parts of your board need to be kept separate. This includes
analog-to-digital converters and digital-to-analog converters. When
designing the “floor plan” of your PCB, be sure to keep these areas isolated.
An ADC’s ground can be tied back to a common ground point where digital

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signals can be passed to other parts of your PCB.

(Image source)

When In Doubt, Ground It Out

Ground is the foundation of your entire electronics house. It’s easy to forget
about this with all the focus on signal routing. However, without a clear
return path, all that time spent worrying about signals will have gone to
waste. Don’t ignore your ground until it becomes a problem, make it your
priority! Live by the 8 rules above, and you’ll have a strong foundation to
grow on for the rest of your engineering life.

Subscribe today and start grounding tomorrow.

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