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38 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2022 Best Practices Are There for a Reason We all know that best practices exist, but real-world circumstances oen lead to cutting corners. Saving time by ignoring best prac- tices—like performing one last design check before submitting to the manufacturer—is just going to cost more time and money later. Even though it seems exhausting and repetitive, best practices involve starting at high-altitude block diagrams and then breaking each block into schematic sheets, checking flow and accuracy carefully, and then finally designing the board. Aer that, a best practice has the engineer and designer picking over the design carefully, ensuring that it matches the specs—before it goes to the PCB manufacturer. Designers Will Do What You Tell Them to Do Engineers need to remember that designers don't read minds; they read schematics. e engineer may understand implicitly the loca- tions for all their bypass capacitors, but they can't rely on the designer's interpretation to properly place the elements. Instead, locate devices in roughly the manner of the final design to help the designer avoid bad intercon- nects, placement assumptions, or other errors. It never hurts to provide the designer with explanatory notes about the elements. You will never hear a designer say that the engineer provided too much guidance for their work. For example, utilize good naming conven- tions for connections or net names. Auto- mated labels from design soware are rarely helpful or intuitive. Create labels a human can understand. Leverage Your Tools, But Don't Use Them as a Crutch Sometimes, engineers will give implicit con- nections using port symbols for the entire schematic. Unfortunately, this practice leaves no trail for the designer to follow. While the engineer may have saved a couple of minutes, the designer spends more time sorting out the nest of connections. Let the software be on your side. It track s and confirms those connections for a reason. is may feel like an obstacle for the engineer, but for the overall project, these tools are a lifeline. e design rule check (DRC) is another example where the tool exists, but results may get ignored in the interest of saving some time. Too oen, issues are ignored because they seem unimportant. However, over time these errors build up and create a confusing mess that may obscure errors that are truly impor- tant. One of your team's best practices should be generating a DRC report that reads no warnings and no violations. More Recommendations for Clean Schematics In addition to the broader best practices of fostering good communication and not relying too much on technology, the following are key methods that help ensure a clean schematic and a manufacturable, functional PCB design. • Design the schematic in the design program and label all connects with comprehensible net names—no auto-generated names • Lay out the schematic in a manner that clarifies locations