Electronic – 2 layers pcb : ground plane at bottom layer, what to put on top

pcbrouting

Disclaimer: I'm designing a simple arduino based board, so I'm maybe over-complicating things, but I'd still like to do the board well.

I've carefully this answer : Decoupling caps, PCB layout, especially this part :

It doesn't take local planes to do this. I routinely use the local
power and ground nets technique even on 2 layer boards. I manually
connect all the ground pins and all the power pins, then the bypass
caps, then the crystal circuit before routing anything else. These
local nets can be a star or whatever right under the microcontroller
and still allow other signals to be routed around them as required.
However, once again, these local nets must have exactly one connection
to the main board power and ground nets. If you have a board level
ground plane, then there will be one via some place to connect the
local ground net to the ground plane.

I now have this board:

Full board

Now, according to Aisler: https://aisler.net/help/design-rules-and-specifications/ultimate-guide-to-robust-pcb-design, I should add some pour on the top layer.

Should I use a dummy signal to accomplish this ?

Edit : added detail on trace spacing :

Detail on traces spacing

Best Answer

You can pour Vdd on the top layer. The added capacitance will help decoupling. It's also slightly better usually to have Vdd on the top and GND on the bottom in case the bottom accidentally contacts something grounded.

If you're doing pours it's a good idea to increase the clearance for the pours to something big like 0.02" (0.5mm) so as to improve manufacturability. That may result in more areas without copper but you can stitch pours to those copper deserts with a few strategically placed traces and vias. You should set your EDA program to remove or avoid isolated copper islands, of course.