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Appendix B: PCB Layout Suggestion
The eects of EMI and power supply noise can potentially
reduce the sensitivity of the receiver, resulting in reduced
link distance. The PCB layout played an important role to
obtain a good PSRR and EM immunity resulting in good
electrical performance. Things to note:
1. The ground plane should be continuous under the
part, but should not extend under the shield trace.
2. The shield trace is a wide, low inductance trace back
to the system ground. CX1, CX2, CX3, CX4 and CX5 are
optional supply lter capacitors; they may be left out if
a clean power supply is used.
3. VLED can be connected to either unltered or
unregulated power supply. The bypass capacitors
should be connection before the current limiting
resistor R2 respectively. In a noisy environment,
including capacitor CX3and CX4 can enhance supply
rejection. CX3 that is generally a ceramic capacitor of
low inductance providing a wide frequency response
while CX4 is tantalum capacitor of big volume and fast
frequency response. The use of a tantalum capacitor
is more critical on the VLED line, which carries a high
current.
4. VCC pin can be connected to either unltered or
unregulated power supply. The Resistor, R1 together
with the capacitors, CX 1and CX2 acts as the low pass
lter.
5. IOVCC is connected to the ASIC voltage supply or
the VCC supply. The capacitor, CX5 acts as the bypass
capacitor.
6. Preferably a multi-layered board should be used
to provide sucient ground plane. Use the layer
underneath and near the transceiver module as Vcc,
and sandwich that layer between ground connected
board layers. The diagram below demonstrate an
example of a 4 layer board :
• Top Layer: Connect the metal shield and
module ground pin to bottom
ground layer;
Place the bypass capacitors within
0.5cm from the VCC and ground
pin of the module.
• Layer 2: Critical ground plane zone. 3
cm in all direction around the
module. Connect to a clean,
noiseless ground node (eg
bottom layer).
• Layer 3: Keep data bus away from critical
ground plane zone.
• Bottom layer: Ground layer. Ground noise <75
mVp-p. Should be separated from
ground used by noisy sources.
The area underneath the module at the second layer, and
3cm in all direction around the module is dened as the
critical ground plane zone. The ground plane should be
maximized in this zone. Refer to application note AN1114
or the Avago Technologies IrDA Data Link Design Guide
for details. The layout below is based on a 2-layer PCB.
Top Layer Bottom Layer
Layer 3
Top Layer
Layer 2
Bottom Layer (GND)
Noise sources to be placed as far away from the transceiver as possible
Legend: ground via
CX3
CX4
CX1
CX2
R
1R
2
CX5