This session is intended for board designers to understand the things RF engineers request during PCB layout. Experienced RF engineers will likely not learn anything new from this course, as the material is mainly geared to board designers.

Due to sensitivity in analog circuits, the keys to full functionality (whether you are designing very high-frequency analog PC boards, mixing RF with digital or mixing low-frequency analog with digital) are signal integrity and noise control in the design of the printed circuit board. This course will cover differences between analog and digital, circuit changes over time, lumped vs. distributed length lines, reflections/return loss/VSWR, low- and high-frequency current, transmission line behavior, impedance control, microstrip vs. stripline, coplanar waveguide w/ ground, circuit termination, 1/4 wavelength couplers and filters designed into board copper, layout techniques and strategies, critical routing and circuit isolation, ground plane splitting (when to and when not to), mismatched loads and other discontinuities, signal splitters, tuning transmission lines, power bus decoupling for RF vs. digital circuits and board stack-ups for mixed RF and digital circuits.