How Complex Motherboards Are Designed and Manufactured

An overview of how complex PC and server motherboards are designed, from power and thermal management to high-speed signaling, board layout, testing, and debugging. It also discusses common reliability issues and what to measure when a board fails to start.

Syllabus

What is this video about
What is a complex design
PC Motherboard described
Power
Power states
Laptop vs. Standard PC
Thermal management
I2C
Memories and timing
x86 vs. other architectures
Industrial motherboards
Backplanes
High speed signals, signal integrity, simulations
QUCS simulator
SPI, JTAG
How many schematic pages and what is there
SERDES
Power supplies
Reliability issues, testing and measuring
Debugging
PCB materials
Floor planning
You power it up and it doesn't work
Measuring by probes
Open Compute Project OPC
Istvan's book