4 Layer PCB Layout Tutorial, Stack-Up Design, and Cost of Manufacturing
4 Layer PCB Layout Tutorial, Stack-Up Design, and Cost of Manufacturing
4 Layer PCB Layout Tutorial, Stack-Up Design, and Cost of Manufacturing
fiber. There are four wiring layers: Top layer, bottom layer, VCC, and GND.
Generally, through holes, buried holes, and blind holes are used to
connect the layers. There are more buried and blind holes than
double-side boards. In addition, try not to run signal track on the two
Table of Contents
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Generally speaking, 4 layer circuit board includes the top layer, bottom
layer, and two middle layers. The top and bottom layers are lay out with
and INTERNAL PLANE2 with ADD PLANE as the most used power
layers such as VCC and ground layers such as GND that is, connect the
corresponding network labels. Please note: you should not use ADD
the power supply VCC and the ground GND. If there are multiple
power sources such as VCC2 or GND2, first use a thicker wire in PLANE1
ground is not visible, and the wire or filling can be clearly seen against the
light.
To delimit the power or ground plane (mainly for the convenience of the
PLANE2. VCC2 copper and GND2 copper should not be in the same PLANE
as VCC. Please note that different network surface layers in the same
Suppose SPLIT1 and SPLIT2 overlap in the same PLANE (SPLIT2 is inside
connect SPLIT1 to the area of SPLIT2. At this time, the via holes in this area
same layer. The DIP footprint components and plug-in parts that pass
through the top and bottom boards will automatically get away from the
PLANE in this area. Click DESIGN/SPLIT PLANES to view each SPLIT PLANES.
design file and press the shortcut key L, and the layer setting window
appears. The one on the left (SIGNAL LAYER) is the positive layer, including
TOP LAYER, BOTTOM LAYER, and MID LAYER. The one in the middle
(INTERNAL PLANES) is the negative layer, also called the INTERNAL LAYER.
These two layers have different properties and usage methods. The
positive layer is generally used for pure track lines, including outer and
inner lines. The negative film layer is mostly used as a ground and power
layer. In the multi-layer PCB board, the ground and power layers generally
use the whole piece or several large copper partitions for the circuit. You
must lay copper if you use the MID LAYER, also known as the positive
layer. Paving copper will make the entire design data volume very large,
affect the HDI design refresh speed. With negative film, you only need to
create a THERMAL PAD at the junction of the outer and inner layers, which
In design, there are instances where it will need to add or delete layers.
a six-layer board, and so on. If you need to add an electrical layer, you can
the current stack structure on the left. Click the upper layer where you
want to add a new layer, such as TOP, and then click ADD LAYER (positive
film) or ADD PLANE (negative film) on the right to complete the addition of
the new layer. If the new layer is a PLANE (negative film) layer, you must
layer name.
There can only be one network assigned. Generally, a GND is sufficient for
the ground layer. If you want to add a new network to this layer, such as a
If you click ADD LAYER, a MID LAYER (positive film) will be added, and the
application method is the same as the outer circuit. Suppose you want to
apply a mixed electrical layer with both wiring and a large copper surface
for power. In that case, you must use the positive layer generated by ADD
If several groups of power supplies are in the design, you can use inner
layer division in the power layer to distribute the power network. The
command to be used here is PLACE-SPLIT PLANE. Then set the layer in the
dialog box that appears, specify the network to be allocated for the split at
CONNECT TO NET, and place the split area according to the copper paving
method.
hole pads, which completes the electrical connection of the power layer.
You can repeat this step until all power is allocated. When the inner
There is also a problem to be noted here: Excluding PLACE FILL, there are
two electrical connection methods for large copper in PROTEL. The first is
applied to the positive layer, including TOP /BOT/MID LAYER. The other is
SPLIT PLANE or the internal electrical layer division. This command can
VERTICES.
Option 1:
One power supply layer, one ground layer, and two signal layers are
arranged as below:
L2 (ground layer);
L3 (power layer);
Option 2:
One power supply layer, one ground layer, and two signal layers are
arranged as below:
L2 (signal layer);
L3 (signal layer);
Option 3:
One power supply layer, one ground layer, and two signal layers are
arranged as below:
L2 (power layer);
L3 (ground layer);
Signal layer
Ground layer
Power layer
Signal layer
options?
plane under the component surface. The key signal is preferably the TOP
layer. As for the layer thickness setting, here are the following suggestions:
the impedance control core board (GND to POWER) should not be too
and the ground plane to ensure the decoupling effect of the power plane.
ground are placed on the top and bottom layers. However, this
1) The power supply and the ground are too far apart. The plane
impedance is large.
2) The power supply and ground plane are incomplete due to the
Option 3 is similar to option 1 and applies to the condition where the main
If you could implement double side PCB, the same can be applied to 4
layer PCB boards. The following describes how to draw a 4-layer board
The above picture is a 2 layer board. The below shows two layers: the
top and bottom layers. The layer is the signal layer, also known as the
positive film, and can do circuit layout on this layer. Others include
In the English version, press and hold the ctrl + L keys to view frequently
used layers.
As shown below:
The signal layer includes the top layer and bottom layer, and the
mechanical layer includes 1, 13, 15 (of course, it can be added). The mask
layer has top/bottom paste, top pad layer, or solder stencil layer, and
being covered by green oil. There are two silkscreen layers below,
top/bottom overlay. There are other layers, the keep-out layer used to
define the shape of the board, the drill drawing layer, etc.
There is also an internal plane next to the signal layer, called the internal
electric layer or negative film. Only layer division can be performed on this
Click Design — Layer Stack Manager in the menu bar, as shown in the
figure below:
This is the layer manager. You can easily see the layer distribution in the
above figure. This board has only two layers: the top and bottom layers,
both of which are signal layers. There are two more options on the right.
One is “Add Layer”, the other is “Add plane”. Add layer adds a signal layer,
To add a layer, first select a base layer. Then click on “Add Layer”
Then you can rename the added layer, such as VCC, and add another layer
Back to the PCB interface, you can see that there are already 4 layers.
You already know how to create 4 layers, 6 layers, even 8 to 20 layers with
When dividing the inner electric layer, we can only divide it and could not
Adding the internal electrical layer is to add the “add plane” in the Layer
Stack Manager.
The internal electrical layer split in the figure above can be split by drawing
electrical layer and distribute the same power supply in one area to
Top layer:
VCC layer:
GND layer:
Since the GND layer is a whole piece of GND, it is sufficient to lay the
Bottom layer:
3D drawing:
Pay attention to the signal line width setting and impedance control;
How to reduce the minimum loop and reduce the EMI problem;
If you learn to use Altium software to draw 4 layer boards, you can also
4 layer PCB board has GND and POWER layers in the middle of TOP and
Bottom layers.
Based on the wiring density in the layout, look at the densest place of the
flying lines, where there are crossovers. It is judged that at least 2 layers of
wiring are required, and the cost (design multiple layers regardless of the
After the layout, it is judged how many layers to use, mainly depending on
the density of the signal and the place with the most flying lines.
pulled out to go to the top layer. The third and fourth layers can be
drilled to go to the bottom layer, and the fifth and sixth rows can be
3. Whenline density is not high, you can use a 2-layer board, but you
lamination, PP, and copper foil are added on both sides of the
through high temperature and high pressure. In short, the 4-layer board
has an inner layer. In terms of the process, some lines will be etched
through the inner layer formed by lamination. The double-sided board can
outline→Test→Inspection
Price difference
PCB production costs are related to the actual area and specific
board’s cost is almost 1.8 to 2 times that of a 2-layer board. This is not a
This tutorial allows beginners to get started. The software I use is Altium
Designer 13, but the basic operations are similar to other software.
1.Preparation
Create a new project file, create a related schematic file, and prepare the
In the PCB interface, click the main menu Design and then click Layer Stack
Manager
As shown below:
After clicking, the following layer manager dialog box will pop up. The
Now let’s add a layer. First, click Top Layer on the left, and then click the
Add Plane button in the upper right corner of the layer manager to add an
internal electrical layer. Because we are working with a 4-layer board using
negative film, you need to add an internal electrical layer and not Add
Double-click the layer, and we can edit the related attributes of this layer,
In the item corresponding to Name, fill in VCC and click OK to close the
dialog box. Rename the layer to VCC as the power layer during design. In
the same way, add another GND layer. Below is the figure after
completion:
3.Import network
Back to the schematic interface, click the main menu Design ==> Update
After finishing the layout of the components on the PCB drawing, draw the
Modify the PCB drawing size to overlap the lines of the keep out
layer. First, set the grid network width to 20mil. Then click the pad symbol
in the shortcut toolbar, and move the mouse to the top left corner of the
keep out layer. A circle should appear in the center of the pad. Click the
arrow keys on the keyboard to move the pad (click in the left direction,
click in the upper direction). Press the enter key, as shown in the figure:
Then click design -> board shape -> move board vertice, overlap the four
points on the drawing with the pad placed just on the keep-out line, and
4.Set the inner electric layer; I have divided the inner electric layer in the
double-click the GND layer, and select the GND network in the NET NAME,
which is defined as the GND layer (before, it was just a GND name).
Set the VCC layer: First, enter the VCC layer, use the line place -> line to
divide the VCC layer (the closed line or both ends of the line are connected
to the outer pullback line), divide into different NET layers, and then click
At this time, we can see a virtual circle around the pad of the
corresponding internal electrical layer. The color of the cross on the pad
example, the inner layer GND is brown, and the cross of the pad is also
brown.
p.s
The pullback automatically appears around the PCB drawing after the
Layer Stack Manager is set. You can double-click the inner layer to set the
The cross of the pad only appears when the pad is placed on the
long as the cross passes through the VCC layer, it will appear.
Related Posts:
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https://www.raypcb.com/4-layer-pcb/