3 ms·

> The RP2040 requires careful placement of about a dozen components, including a crystal. To be fair, the chip is designed to make these really easy to place.

by crote 2y ago

> The RP2040 requires careful placement of about a dozen components, including a crystal. To be fair, the chip is designed to make these really easy to place. There's pretty much one single layout which makes sense, and it provides easy access to all the pins you could possibly want. Combine that with the excellent documentation they have provided, and it's essentially just a multi-part drop-in design you don't ever have to think about again. It did look a little bit intimidating at first, but it was a genuinely pleasure to implement.

peteforde 2y ago
You're kind of making my point for me; when every engineer has to place a dozen components, a non-zero number of them are going to make facepalm mistakes. Even if you create a sub-module layout that you include in every project you work on... that's still n slightly different permutations of the same thing, even if they are all perfect. (They aren't.)
- petsfed 2y ago
  A non-zero number of engineers will implement "hello world" wrong when they're first learning a language. That's not an argument against any given programming language either. "I made a design error that the documentation specifically calls out as something to avoid" doesn't hold much water as a legitimate criticism. Especially when the design error is "I didn't put the decoupling cap very close to the pin it's supposed to be decoupling for". (as an aside, you should read the "minimal design example" chapter from the RP2040 Hardware Design Guide[0], even if you have zero intention of designing with the chip. It's a literal masterclass in beginner-level pcb design.) Literally none of this is actually a hazard if you design more than one PCBA with a microcontroller on it in your entire life. I'd argue that designing around a castellated-edge module is much MUCH harder to get right on the first try than discrete components, even though the parameter space is apparently much smaller. 0. https://datasheets.raspberrypi.com/rp2040/hardware-design-with-rp2040.pdf https://datasheets.raspberrypi.com/rp2040/hardware-design-wi...
- 15155 2y ago
  > Even if you create a sub-module layout that you include in every project you work on... that's still n slightly different permutations of the same thing, even if they are all perfect. (They aren't.) Part of hardware design is letting go of your neuroses. The real world isn't a perfect place. You operate with the situation you have for the design at hand. Ask yourself why you really need everything to be the exact same. Laying down a handful of capacitors, a single of QSPI flash, and a crystal should become second nature to anyone professionally practicing in this field.. it should take 30 seconds to position and rotate these components near the appropriate pins and not too much longer to route (minutes at most if you've done it before for this MCU.)

by crote 2y ago

peteforde 2y ago

You're kind of making my point for me; when every engineer has to place a dozen components, a non-zero number of them are going to make facepalm mistakes. Even if you create a sub-module layout that you include in every project you work on... that's still n slightly different permutations of the same thing, even if they are all perfect. (They aren't.)

petsfed 2y ago
A non-zero number of engineers will implement "hello world" wrong when they're first learning a language. That's not an argument against any given programming language either. "I made a design error that the documentation specifically calls out as something to avoid" doesn't hold much water as a legitimate criticism. Especially when the design error is "I didn't put the decoupling cap very close to the pin it's supposed to be decoupling for". (as an aside, you should read the "minimal design example" chapter from the RP2040 Hardware Design Guide[0], even if you have zero intention of designing with the chip. It's a literal masterclass in beginner-level pcb design.) Literally none of this is actually a hazard if you design more than one PCBA with a microcontroller on it in your entire life. I'd argue that designing around a castellated-edge module is much MUCH harder to get right on the first try than discrete components, even though the parameter space is apparently much smaller. 0. https://datasheets.raspberrypi.com/rp2040/hardware-design-with-rp2040.pdf https://datasheets.raspberrypi.com/rp2040/hardware-design-wi...
15155 2y ago
> Even if you create a sub-module layout that you include in every project you work on... that's still n slightly different permutations of the same thing, even if they are all perfect. (They aren't.) Part of hardware design is letting go of your neuroses. The real world isn't a perfect place. You operate with the situation you have for the design at hand. Ask yourself why you really need everything to be the exact same. Laying down a handful of capacitors, a single of QSPI flash, and a crystal should become second nature to anyone professionally practicing in this field.. it should take 30 seconds to position and rotate these components near the appropriate pins and not too much longer to route (minutes at most if you've done it before for this MCU.)