Re: gEDA-user: General ground/power plane design questions

[Randall Nortman <geda-lists@wonderclown.org>]

On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 02:49:14PM -0700, Steve Meier wrote:
[...]
> for each signal layer calculate the trace width for the desired 
> impedence and....

If I were a real electrical engineer, I'm sure that would be second
nature to me.  Assuming I'm lazy and don't care to be rigorous, is
there a problem with just using the fattest traces I can fit?  Could I
actually filter out high frequency noise on digital lines by using
narrower traces?  I guess a narrow trace creates a low-pass RC filter,
with the trace being the R and the trace + ground plane being the C.
I'm sure I can find the relevant formulas, which probably require
knowing the dielectric constant of the board material, and the precise
separation distance between copper layers, plus the length of each
trace.  That's lots of work, which gets back to the point about me
being lazy -- is this really necessary for signals < 16MHz?

Randall