By this point, we’ve covered everything that happens during schematic design and your overall PCB design workflow. At the end of the previous unit, we looked at what happens when you import your components from schematics into your new PCB. Other ECAD software programs follow a similar process for bringing components into a design, with the goal of conforming to the standard workflow used in the PCB design industry.

Once the components are imported into a blank layout, you’ll have to arrange them around the board so you can make connections. But before you start placing components and routing traces, there are a few more tasks you’ll have to complete. First, you’ll need to define some design rules for your project. But what exactly are design rules, and what rules do we need to worry about? We’ll look at some of the design rules you’ll need to think about in this lesson.

Before we get started, just remember that you don’t need to memorize every possible design rule that is available in ECAD software. Usually, for your specific application, only a few of these rules will be most important. The challenge is determining which rules are important and what settings to apply. Sometimes, your manufacturer can help with this based on their capabilities. Other times, there are industry standards to think about. We’ll look at design choices in both