Ground plane on bottom layer in PCB Design - Dashboard Guide

Dashboard Mode - Ground plane on bottom layer

Goal

Understand how placing a ground plane on the bottom layer of a PCB affects signal integrity and noise reduction.

Sample Data: PCB Layer Stackup and Signal Noise Levels

Layer	Type	Material Thickness (mm)	Signal Noise (mV)	Impedance (Ohms)
Top	Signal	0.035	50	50
Inner 1	Power	0.1	30	NA
Bottom	Ground Plane	0.035	10	0
Bottom Soldermask	Protective	0.02	NA	NA

Dashboard Components

• KPI Card: Average Signal Noise (mV) = (50 + 10) / 2 = 30
• Bar Chart: Signal Noise by Layer showing Top (50 mV), Inner 1 (30 mV), Bottom Ground Plane (10 mV)
• Table: Layer details with Type, Thickness, Signal Noise, and Impedance

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+----------------------+
|      KPI Card        |     Bar Chart        |
|  Average Signal Noise |  Signal Noise by     |
|        (30 mV)        |      Layer           |
+----------------------+----------------------+
|                    Table                    |
|          Layer Details with Metrics         |
+--------------------------------------------+

Interactivity

A filter to select specific layers (e.g., only Signal layers or only Ground layers) updates the Bar Chart and Table to show data only for those layers. The KPI Card recalculates the average signal noise for the filtered layers.

Self Check

If you add a filter to show only the Bottom Ground Plane layer, which components update and what values do they show?

• The Bar Chart updates to show only the Bottom Ground Plane with 10 mV noise.
• The Table updates to show only the Bottom Ground Plane row.
• The KPI Card updates to show Average Signal Noise as 10 mV.

Key Result

Dashboard showing how a ground plane on the bottom layer reduces signal noise in a PCB stackup.