These design elements will result in significantly more expensive and long-lead PCBs. Minimize use of microvias, buried vias, and non-standard stackups as much as possible.Build out a bill of materials (package type and quantity) for each sub-circuit, populate the layout without traces, and work with your mechanical design team to collaboratively optimize the board outline, mechanical/thermal interfaces, and stackup thickness. Conduct a rough density study very early in the design process.The root cause of any layout issues will be much more challenging to isolate and debug when integrated with the rest of the system on a higher density PCB. This will allow you to ensure manufacturability and performance before investing the time and money in manufacturing and test of the complete system. Circuits that are high in speed, power, noise sensitivity, manufacturing complexity, or density should be laid out on a simplified PCB with ample test points to enable early evaluation. Prototype challenging sub-circuits early with "breadboard" PCBs.Resources under this topic area are primarily design guides and CAD tools for PCB layout. Board layout errors are usually identified in manufacturing and test, which makes detecting them before flight relatively likely however, the schedule impact of these errors can be substantial - making good design practices an important consideration for smallsat teams on tight schedules. This typically involves capturing all component package footprints, importing the schematic design/netlist, defining the PCB outline and mechanical interface features, designing the PCB stackup, defining design rules, placing the components, routing the traces, and generating design files for manufacturing.
This task is where the physical implementation of a schematic circuit design is developed. This topic page covers board layout of printed circuit boards (PCBs) for spacecraft electronics. Please contribute by rating resources and providing recommendations and feedback at the bottom of this topic page.