High speed PCB refers to PCB with signal frequency exceeding 100MHz or signal transmission rate exceeding 1ns (nanoseconds).
1) In terms of design, signal integrity is the primary consideration in high-speed PCB design. Due to the easy occurrence of reflection, crosstalk, delay, and other phenomena during high-speed transmission of signals, special wiring strategies, terminal matching techniques, and differential pair designs are required in the design to ensure clear and lossless transmission of signals. At lower signal speeds, these issues have less impact on ordinary PCBs, and the design requirements are relatively relaxed.
2) Material selection: High speed PCBs often use boards with low loss, low dielectric constant (Dk), and low dielectric loss factor (Df) to reduce delay and energy loss during signal transmission. In contrast, ordinary PCBs may use materials with lower costs and average performance.
3) Power integrity: High speed circuits have extremely high requirements for power stability, and any power fluctuations may cause signal distortion. Therefore, special attention will be paid to the design of the power plane and the layout of decoupling capacitors in high-speed PCB design to ensure power quality. Ordinary PCBs do not have such strict requirements for this.
4) Heat dissipation management: High speed operation generates more heat, so high-speed PCBs need to pay more attention to heat dissipation schemes in their design, such as adding heat dissipation layers, using materials with good thermal conductivity, etc., to prevent performance degradation or damage caused by overheating. Although ordinary PCBs also consider heat dissipation, the requirements are usually lower.
5) Complexity and Cost: The design, manufacturing, and testing of high-speed PCBs are more complex, requiring precise simulation analysis and advanced manufacturing processes, which directly leads to higher costs than ordinary PCBs.
