Recommendations; Printed Circuit Board; Component Position; Ground And Power Supply (Vss , Vdd ) - ST STM32F4 Series Getting Started

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Recommendations

7.1

Printed circuit board

For technical reasons, it is best to use a multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) with a
separate layer dedicated to ground (V
provides good decoupling and a good shielding effect. For many applications, economical
reasons prohibit the use of this type of board. In this case, the major requirement is to
ensure a good structure for ground and for the power supply.
7.2

Component position

A preliminary layout of the PCB must separate the different circuits according to their EMI
contribution in order to reduce cross-coupling on the PCB, that is noisy, high-current circuits,
low-voltage circuits, and digital components.
7.3 Ground and power supply (V
Every block (noisy, low-level sensitive, digital, etc.) should be grounded individually and all
ground returns should be to a single point. Loops must be avoided or have a minimum area.
The power supply should be implemented close to the ground line to minimize the area of
the supply loop. This is due to the fact that the supply loop acts as an antenna, and is
therefore the main transmitter and receiver of EMI. All component-free PCB areas must be
filled with additional grounding to create a kind of shielding (especially when using single-
layer PCBs).
7.4

Decoupling

All power supply and ground pins must be properly connected to the power supplies. These
connections, including pads, tracks and vias should have as low impedance as possible.
This is typically achieved with thick track widths and, preferably, the use of dedicated power
supply planes in multilayer PCBs.
In addition, each power supply pair should be decoupled with filtering Ceramic capacitors
(100 nF) and one single Tantalum or Ceramic capacitor (min. 4.7 µF typ.10 µF) connected
in parallel. These capacitors need to be placed as close as possible to, or below, the
appropriate pins on the underside of the PCB. Typical values are 10 nF to 100 nF, but exact
values depend on the application needs.
V /V
DD SS
pair.
DocID026304 Rev 3
) and another dedicated to the V
SS
, V )
SS DD
Figure 25 shows the typical layout of such a
Recommendations
supply. This
DD
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