5 Design
5.4 Floor plan

Next step is to draw the board with all the components on it. You need to transfer your schematic drawing into a drawing of your printed circuit board. That is the floor plan. A floor plan is a drawing that indicates the general location of components on the blank PCB before drawing in any traces [11].

Functional blocks of circuitry such as power conditioning, RF, digital, analog, etc., should be organized and placed as groups in order to minimize signal crossing. A pre-placement floor plan will allow you to see what the signal flow between functional blocks is and how best to plan for it. For instance, group your power conditioning parts together as much as possible in order that their signals do not have to cross through sensitive areas of RF circuitry.

A floor plan is a drawing that indicates general areas where blocks of circuitry are to be placed on the board. Floor plans bridge the gap between the schematic drawing and the physical layout. This gives the designer a head start on placement.