GROUND PLANE

 

There are many reasons to add copper pours to our design.  Adding a copper pour to your board adds a great finishing touch that gives your board a professional look while also providing a common layer for all of your ground and power signals.  Shielding or heat dissipation.

And while we might be adding this copper pour last, you can also add it at the start of your layout process. This will make routing complex boards that much easier when you have a common connection point for all of your ground signals. To add a copper pour, do this:

Select the Polygon  tool on the left-hand side of your interface and use the parameter toolbar to set the layer, width and isolate values.

LAYER

Choose the layer that you want your ground plane in.

WIDTH

an Isolate setting of 0.012” to provide enough clearance between your ground signals and copper pour.

ISOLATE

The isolate value determines the distance between the polygon area and the other signals on the same layer. In this example, I chose 16 mils.

Now left-click at the bottom-left origin point of your PCB outline and begin drawing a red line along each edge of your board.

When you return to your origin point left-click again to finalize your polygon outline. Your solid red polygon should now turn into a dashed one.

Next, you need to associate this polygon as a ground plane. To do this, select the Name  tool on the left-hand side of your interface, and left-click your polygon.

In the Name dialog, enter GND in the New name: field and select OK.

Once your setup is complete, all you need to do is select the Ratsnest  tool on the left-hand side of your interface, and you should now have a red copper pour . Go ahead and repeat this process for your bottom layer, this time for Layer 16 instead of Layer 1.