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Q&A Does My Circuit Contain High-Speed Signals?

No, none of your signals sound like "high speed". However, that doesn't mean you should ignore high frequency noise issues. If you can dedicate one layer to be mostly a ground plane, that would b...

posted 1d ago by Olin Lathrop‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Olin Lathrop‭ · 2025-02-04T18:46:33Z (1 day ago)
No, none of your signals sound like "high speed".

However, that doesn't mean you should ignore high frequency noise issues.  If you can dedicate one layer to be mostly a ground plane, that would be good.  If this is a high volume product optimized for low cost, then you get creative with only two layers.  Otherwise, don't waste engineering time trying to squeeze things into only two layers.  Use 4 layers minimum, and dedicate one of them to be a ground plane.

Your real sources of noise are not the signals you mentioned, but whatever gets switched by the PWM signal and the output of the switch inside the buck converter.

If the buck switch is perfect, there will be a very high dV/dt when it turns off as the inductor voltage goes as low as it has to to keep the current flowing in the immediate short term.  That usually means a fast slew from power to ground.  That edge will be a much more significant source of noise than the signals you explicitly mentioned.

Another often overlooked source of noise is the ringing of a switching power supply inductor during the off phase in discontinuous mode.  You might be driving the switching power supply at 200 kHz, but when the inductor is off, its resonant frequency with the little parasitic capacitance can easily be several MHz.