Electronic – Traces under 32kHz Crystal

pcb-design

I am working on a battery powered 2 layer RF design using a 32.768kHz Crystal oscillator with an Atmega328p micro controller. The crystal will run a timer in asynchronous mode as an RTC clock.

My pcb board is fairly small, and the crystal is pretty big. The easiest way for me to run traces using my current layout would be to run my VCC trace under the crystal from the battery. At this low of frequency would this cause problems in my power domain (oscillating/ noise)?

Trace under Crystal

I do not have it on the board yet, but the bottom layer of the board will be a solid ground plane (for RF return path), and the top layer traces will be surrounded with a ground pour as well. (With via stitching to eliminate any impedance between layers).

Would I be safe to run this power line under the crystal and into a 47uF capacitor. Then do a star power distribution?

Best Answer

I would never put anything but a ground plane directly under a crystal, especially a high-Z crystal like a 32.768kHz type. And preferably an isolated flag tied to the GND on the chip, with no current running through it, if it's a 2-layer board.

Why don't you put a ground plane under the chip and run the power connection on the opposite side (preferably not directly under the crystal)?