Started work on PCB

Gepostet am: 05.05.2016 14:27:55

In parallel to the Verilog development and bugfixing, I have started to design a PCB (printed circuit board) for the next generation prototype. This PCB will contain basically everything that will be needed for the final FPGASID in a much smaller form factor than the current evaluation board.

I wonder how small that form factor will be in the end. My goal is to keep everything not much larger than the size of a 28-pin IC DIP-socket. But this will be hard to reach. I need a lot of level shifters around the FPGA, some extra circuits for the delta-sigma output converter, an input stage for the AD converter, voltage regulator and so on...

In the end it will be a trade off between cost and size: When I have to go from a 2-layer PCB to a 4-layer PCB this will increase the PCB-cost a lot. So I want to avoid this. But with a 2-layer PCB I may not be able to squeeze everything into the limited space.