Re: [EE] PCB design

At 01:16 PM 2025-07-23, you wrote:
>I did  a lot of PCB design before retirement  mainly on multilayer boards:
>4 to 12 layers.
>I am now as a hobby  designing two layer boards.  My approach is to put as
>many tracks as possible on one side of the board (fairly easy as I am
>generally translating circuits that were tested on stripboard) and putting
>a ground plane on the other side.
>
>My query is:  is it better to have the ground plane on the top (component
>side and the tracks on the bottom?  Or vice versa? and why?

If you're using modern parts (aka SMT) you're going to want to route as much
as possible like a single-sided board layout on the component side. As such,
placement is very important, comparatively.

I found my single-sided board layout skills experienced a welcom revival
when SMT became just about mandatory.

Then you can put a relatively good ground plane on the other side.

If you find it too taxing for a hobby, some Chinese suppliers have 
4-layer boards
at very reasonable prices. Then you can have one layer for a ground plane,
perhaps split another layer for different Vdd domains and two layers for
routing. Of course you don't get blind/buried vias, microvias or any of that
fancy stuff for the low price. 4-layer, especially with aggressively small
vias and track width/spacing is a snap to lay out unless you're really crowding
stuff, and it's much, much better for EMC.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany