Route planning for two-layer board in PCB Design - Dashboard Guide

Dashboard Mode - Route planning for two-layer board

Goal

Understand how to plan and visualize routing paths on a two-layer printed circuit board (PCB) to optimize signal flow and minimize interference.

Sample Data: PCB Net Connections

Net ID	Start Point	End Point	Layer	Length (mm)	Via Count
Net1	U1 Pin1	R1 Pin2	Top	15	0
Net2	U2 Pin3	C1 Pin1	Bottom	20	1
Net3	U3 Pin5	J1 Pin1	Top	10	0
Net4	R2 Pin1	U4 Pin2	Bottom	25	2
Net5	C2 Pin2	U5 Pin4	Top	18	1

Dashboard Components

• KPI Card: Total Nets Routed - Counts all nets in the data.
  Formula: Total Nets = COUNTROWS('PCB_Nets')
  Result: 5
• KPI Card: Total Vias Used - Sum of all vias across nets.
  Formula: Total Vias = SUM('PCB_Nets'[Via Count])
  Result: 4
• Bar Chart: Length of Nets by Layer - Shows total length of nets on Top and Bottom layers.
  Formula: Length by Layer = SUMMARIZE('PCB_Nets', 'PCB_Nets'[Layer], "Total Length", SUM('PCB_Nets'[Length (mm)]))
  Data: Top = 43 mm, Bottom = 45 mm
• Table: Detailed Net Routes - Lists each net with start, end, layer, length, and vias.
  Shows all rows from sample data.

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+----------------------+
| Total Nets Routed    | Total Vias Used      |
|       [ 5 ]          |       [ 4 ]          |
+----------------------+----------------------+
|                                              |
|          Length of Nets by Layer (Bar Chart) |
|                                              |
+----------------------------------------------+
|                                              |
|             Detailed Net Routes (Table)      |
|                                              |
+----------------------------------------------+

Interactivity

A layer filter allows selecting either 'Top', 'Bottom', or 'All' layers.

• When a layer is selected, the bar chart updates to show lengths only for that layer.
• The detailed net routes table filters to show only nets on the selected layer.
• KPI cards update: Total Nets Routed and Total Vias Used reflect counts and sums for the filtered layer.

Self Check

If you add a filter for Layer = 'Top', which components update and what are their new values?

• Total Nets Routed: 3 (Nets 1, 3, 5)
• Total Vias Used: 1 (Via counts 0 + 0 + 1)
• Length of Nets by Layer: Bar chart shows only Top layer total length = 43 mm
• Detailed Net Routes: Table shows only nets on Top layer (Net1, Net3, Net5)

Key Result

Dashboard shows routing details and via usage for nets on a two-layer PCB with layer-based filtering.