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Johnnyjax , 04-18-2020, 12:00 PM

I'm really enjoying the advanced pcb layout course but what I have trouble with is understanding the schematics. There are so many ICs there that I dont know their function or why they were used. Ethernet, audio, hdmi, USB ICs and some other ICs. How did you know what ICs to use? Was there a reference design released by freescale to know what ICs to use? Is there a documentation I can read to find out what these ICs are doing, why they were used and how to connect them to the imx6 processors? Even simple questions like how many capacitors to use and why some resistors were used and others. Thanks.

robertferanec , 04-20-2020, 05:28 AM

Yes, there is "big" reference design from NXP + you also need "small" reference designs for chips. So basically, if you need a peripheral on your board (e.g. you decide, that you need more USB ports on your board), you find a chip and every good chip manufacturer will provide reference schematic + reference layout so you know what resistors and capacitors you need to use with your chip and how to route it.

Just google for iMX6 NXP and download schematic and PCB of the reference boards (you may need to register there).

PS: How to connect them - usually they are connected through standard interfaces which have specification and this specification exactly describes how the pins should be connected (or just check reference boards how others connected them)

Johnnyjax , 04-20-2020, 06:30 AM

Thanks a lot.