Copper Balancing

Community Projects
1

Dear all,

I have completed the designing of a 4-layer RF PCB and the manufacturer ask if it possible to balance the copper at the inner and outer layers.

The stack up is RF SIGNALS(red)-GND(yellow)-VCC(orange)-SIGNALS(blue)

This is my first PCB and I don’t how to manipulate with copper balancing. Furthermore, I am not sure whether or not this extra copper is going to affect/degrade the performance of my RF PCB. Also, the extra copper shall be grounded or not?

Please find attached some screen shots (in single layer mode) of the layers.

Also, as you can notice I didn’t apply vcc plane. Should I apply?

Thanks in advance

2

This is the forth layer

3

this extra copper is going to affect/degrade the performance of my RF PCB

Of course it will. The design of RF PCBs is best left to people with lots of training and experience, who also have the equipment needed to figure out what went wrong. A good rule of thumb is that the first board never works properly.

If you want this project to succeed, design in a footprint for an existing RF module.

4

This is a prototype, I am pretty sure that is going to malfunction and I will try to improve in the next versions.

If you want this project to succeed, design in a footprint for an existing RF module

What do you mean?

Also, do you have any suggestion regarding the copper balancing?

Thanks

5

Do you not know what an “RF module” is, or do you not know what a “PCB footprint” is?

Google will be happy to tell you something about each one.

6

Already answered at https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners … sg2183459/.

7

+1 to what was said on eevblog

The comment about gluing two 2-sided PBs together is circa 1970. The 3rd layer is for sure “light” and could easily take copper pours. Since the 4th layer looks mostly to be control lines I would add ground pours on layer 3 without much hesitation (since the microstrip layer is already set between layers 1 and 2).