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A Plan for Floor Planning: Design007 Magazine August 2025
August 8, 2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamEstimated reading time: Less than a minute

Floor planning is like designing a city or arranging furniture in a new home—it’s not just about making things fit!
Engineers have to weigh dozens (sometimes hundreds) of tradeoffs to balance electrical performance with physical and cost constraints. The decisions made here ripple through the rest of the project: stackup choices can come back to haunt you, and component placement can impact signal integrity, routing efficiency, and overall manufacturability. And as pitch shrinks, the margin for error disappears.
There are countless ways to go wrong in floor planning. Don’t worry: this month, in Design007 Magazine, our contributors share their best practices and proven strategies to help you stay ahead and avoid that dreaded 5:30 p.m. Friday call from the fabricator.
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Sweeney Ng - CEE PCBSuggested Items
Talking with Tamara: Floor Planning Policies
09/04/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineTamara Jovanovic is an electrical engineer with Masimo, a medical equipment manufacturer. She’s been designing PCBs for seven years and earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering in 2022. I asked Tamara to share her thoughts on floor planning—the challenges, techniques, and advice for designers setting up floor planning strategies.
Mastering PCB Floor Planning
08/28/2025 | Stephen V. Chavez, Siemens EDAPlacement of PCB components is far more than just fitting components onto a board. It’s a strategic and critical foundational step, often called “floor planning,” that profoundly impacts the board’s performance, reliability, manufacturability, and cost. Floor planning ties into the solvability perspective, with performance and manufacturability being the other two competing perspectives for addressing and achieving success in PCB design.
Elementary Mr. Watson: Routing Hunger Games—May the Traces Be Ever in Your Favor
08/26/2025 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. WatsonI’d like to share a harsh truth, and I say this as a friend: PCB designers are often their own worst enemy. It’s rarely the complexity of the circuit, the last-minute changes from mechanical, the limited enclosure space, or the ever-expanding list of design rules that send projects to the dust heap of failed boards. More often, it's our own decisions, made too quickly and narrowly, and with too little foresight, that sabotage an otherwise good design.
The Art and Science of PCB Floor Planning: A Comprehensive Guide
08/14/2025 | Cory Grunwald and Jeff Reinhold, Monsoon SolutionsPCB design is an intricate and crucial part of developing electronic products. One of the foundational stages of PCB design is floor planning, a phase where the placement of components and the flow of signals are meticulously mapped out. A good floor plan ensures that the PCB performs well, is easy to manufacture, and meets all mechanical and electrical requirements. We’ll explore the essential aspects of floor planning, from its objectives and process to the challenges that designers face.
Elementary, Mr. Watson: Why Your PCB Looks Like a Studio Apartment
08/13/2025 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. WatsonIn November 2022, I wrote a column called "Is Your Bathroom in the Kitchen?" This piece related a bizarre real estate listing that emerged out of St. Louis that had architects scratching their heads and interior designers cringing. Nestled in the historic Central West End sat a 200-square-foot apartment that completely defied logic. It wasn't the size that raised eyebrows, it was the layout. Here's the kicker: While that's rare in real estate, it's shockingly common in PCB design.