How RF laboratories accelerate RF PCB design for IoT with constraint management

Designing electronic products with capabilities geared for the Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer the exception. It is the rule. IoT technology not only opens up numerous new electronic device product categories, it drives innovators to rethink the ways that consumers interact with traditional tech-less products. The opportunities to invent new tech devices and reinvent existing products with IoT capabilities are seemingly endless.

Naturally, this implies new challenges and new requirements for PCB designers and engineers. The IoT has increased the demand for good radio frequency (RF) design practices from the mains, to the wall outlet power, all the way to the antenna.

It has also increased the need to understand what design requirements will comply with regulatory certification and what oversights may lead to failed tests at compliance test time in an FCC or CE lab. Additionally, with several IoT standards employed today, constraint management has become critical to ensuring that designs meet product performance and reliability.

In this paper, we discuss RF constraint management and RF layout techniques for the routing of RF PCBs.