Beginners' Schematic Guide

  • no decade caps, but always largest capacitance for case size
  • at least one bypass cap per pin
  • ground always points down, supply always up
  • application notes often suggest untested (emc), old practices that do no longer work in modern designs
  • place series termination resistors on fast signals and all signals that leave the board
  • consider bjts for signals before mosfets
  • comparators usually are open drain and need pull ups
  • indicator LEDs that shouldn’t be super bright can use 10k resistors
  • i2c pull ups can be 10k for low speed and 3.3k for fast speed
  • spi needs pull ups on cs and clk, mosi good idea. 10k or 100k.
  • 10k pullup on reset
  • use pull resistors to permanently tie enable signals to a rail
  • use standard debug connector pin out (swd, esp-prog)
  • do not use 1117 ldo, there are better ones
  • ceramic capacitors lose capacitance at applied voltage
  • do not use ldos for more than 300mA for 5v->3.3v and more than 50mA for 12v input
  • 12v in a car can go above 14v, and above 60V in stress conditions
  • use 5.1k resistors on usb type-c peripheral cc lines
  • do not use ferrites
  • you most likely do not need a separate analog voltage rail
  • do not use separate analog ground
  • try to use differential signaling when running long cables (e.g. CAN, RS-485, Ethernet) to reduce emissions
  • input pins need to have defined voltage; place pull resistors if the pins don’t have internal pulls
  • prefer leaded parts over leadless (QFN, DFN, BGA) parts
  • consider adding test poins for all signals and power rails, but especially for those signals that do not have exposed pads. add several ground test points.
  • ESD protection on every line that leaves the enclosure or that can be reached by the user (e.g. tactile button)