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74 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2021 to every component, circuit, and device as expected. Power integrity is measured by how effectively power is transferred from the power source to components in the system. A design needs to ensure that all components are supplied with the appropriate power level to achieve target performance of the entire circuit. Power quality can be negatively affected by noise, so one important design goal is to mini- mize that noise. You should start, of course, by being familiar with the power supply require- ments for all your ICs and components. Higher quality power supplies can produce less noise, as well. Keeping It Inside If your board has three or more layers, keep- ing the power and ground planes on one of the internal layers can make a lot of sense. Not only can this help add structure to the board, but it gives easy access to both power and ground from other layers while helping to keep your PCB design clean. Since it is better to supply power to cer- tain components in parallel rather than serial, designing your power plane on an internal layer can really help keep the layout clean on the outer layers. is can keep you from backing yourself into a corner with power delivery and forcing you to daisy-chain your ICs together. You will easily be able to create wide, solid, common power rails without interfering with the rest of your PCB design. Separating your ground and power planes can also help reduce electromagnetic interfer- ence while distributing power. Not only will this reduce strange signal patterns, but it can help prevent unexpected voltage drops, too. Thermal Regulation Heat dissipation directly impacts the perfor- mance of a power supply. Almost every com- ponent will emit some amount of heat when current is applied, and the amount of heat depends on the level of power applied, the particular characteristics of the component, and impedance. Higher temperatures impact the performance of a circuit, which means that power supply design also includes cool- ing design.