PCB Design Complexity.

[dhelio]

Hello All,

Is there any template/guidelines describing the complexity of PCB design. The main purpose for this is to effectively set appropriate timeline in designing PCB.

I had actually made a draft for this like defining components affecting PCB complexity (#layer, #connections, board size, DUT pin count, etc...), but I still have problem on setting of the level of compexity on each components.

Please help.

Thank you,
Dhelio

[randychase]

That is a tough question. In the old days of through hole parts, it used to be a lot simpler. You counted the number of pins and multiplied that number by a factor.

A lot of people still do it that way.

Number of pins in design = N

N/40 = Average Hours for layout

But density, layers, size of board, technology... all impact that. Hand routing or autoroute? High speed issues? Analog routes? Split planes? Power supply? It becomes too complicated to reduce to a simple equation.

[dhelio]

it somehow helps, right its not actually the number of parts complicate the design but number of pin holes on the whole design.
Anymore inputs to come up with a better tool to identify board design complexity?