Primarily, the goal of the PCB design is to minimize the thermal impedance in the path to those cooler structures. These tips should be followed to achieve that goal:
- Avoid placing other heat producing components or structures near the amplifier (including above or below in the end equipment).
- If possible, use a higher layer count PCB to provide more heat sinking
capability for the device and to prevent traces and copper signal and power
planes from breaking up the contiguous copper on the top and bottom
layer.
- Place the DRV5825P device away from the edge of the PCB when possible to ensure that the heat can travel away from the device on all four sides.
- Avoid cutting off the flow of heat from the DRV5825P device to the surrounding areas with traces or via strings. Instead, route traces perpendicular to the device and line up vias in columns which are perpendicular to the device.
- Unless the area between two pads of a passive component is large enough to allow copper to flow in between the two pads, orient it so that the narrow end of the passive component is facing the DRV5825P device.
- Because the ground pins are the best conductors of heat in the package, maintain a contiguous ground plane from the ground pins to the PCB area surrounding the device for as many of the ground pins as possible.