Hello, I am having a small discussion with one of the engineers at the
moment about groundplane
and whether or not it should be hatched or solid?

AFAIKR if you have large areas of copper on a board with lots of thin tracks
it can cause etching problems because the
board is not even, so some of the thinner tracks can get etched away.

Also, when it is sent through the hot processes (Reflow/wave etc) it can
cause the board to warp, if one side has more large areas
of copper on than the other.

Hatched copper is supposed to prevent both these from happening.

For a small digital board that does not have high currents going through it
solid groundplane is not required and hatched will suffice.
I have seen many modern PC cards that use hatched grounding on.

Now the big question is "am I talking codswallop here" or what?

I'd appreciate some comments from you more experienced engineers.
P.S. I'm referring to single/double sided boards only not Multilayer.
(although I'd appreciate comments regarding those as well to cope with my
current 4L board).


Thankyou,
Matthew Lamkin.

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