Homebrew PCBs

Andrew,

I highly recommend reading all the tips at the Hott Consultants web site. As
you question is very general, it may help guide you a bit. I worked for a
very high precision metrology equipment maker-- we separated analog and
digital grounds (actually often compartmentalized them), connected with vias
the grounds on upper, lower, and inner layers, guard rings, guard layers,
etc-- we had a saying: "all roads lead to Mecca" and you could literally see
this in the board layouts.  Of course metrology are different than RF, so it
depends on what you're building and the frequency domains involved.

The best resource I have found:
http://www.hottconsultants.com/techtips/split-gnd-plane.html

Good luck with your design.

Best regards,

Bill Laakkonen

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 7:19 PM, Andrew <a_wake@...> wrote:

>
>
> I am closing in on designing a board that is a mix of SMD and through hole
> parts. I am using a zone on the bottom side to provide a ground plane; I
> wondered about adding a zone to the top as well. If I did a top zone, is
> there any reason I can't make it a ground plane as well?
>
>  
>


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