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I've created a USB audio codec using the TI PCM2912A.

The feature I use the most is the Audio Sidetone functionality, which plays back audio from the mic so that you can hear yourself talking.

I use an Audio Technica headset with an electret mic and a 3.5mm TRRS jack.

However, because it's a passive low-voltage mic signal, it easily picks up interference such as my phone's LTE connection as well as many random quiet popping noises.

It hasn't been too detrimental, but I'd like to make another revision that avoids this issue. Can anyone give me advice? I'd be happy to share my PCB layout and schematic

UPDATE:

Here's the datasheet for the USB Codec: https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/pcm2912a

I've sldo added my schematic and PCB layout Schematic

Frong PCB Layout

Back PCB Layout

NCuser
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    Post your schematic and layout. Also, link the datasheet for the Codec and microphone. – user1850479 Jul 01 '23 at 17:36
  • Shielding the analog part wouldn't hurt, if you think it's picking up noise from the environment. – Hearth Jul 01 '23 at 17:45
  • That capacitor layout is really problematic and those huge loops will make you more susceptible to noise pickup. Take a look at the layout recommendations in the datasheet and see if you can follow them a little more closely. Does this need to be so small and single sided? Can you use smaller packages? – user1850479 Jul 02 '23 at 22:40

2 Answers2

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The layout of your board could use some work. First, if you're not familiar with bypassing, take a look at this question:

Decoupling caps, PCB layout

After that, lets look at your bypass capacitor placement. I picked two random bypass capacitors that were labeled on the board and drew the current loops:

enter image description here

Those loops are enormous, which means the capacitor won't be very effective at suppressing noise and at the same time you may have high frequency signals induced into those big loops. You want to make them as small as possible, if you do maybe that will improve your noise pick up.

The datasheet has a nice cartoon style layout on page 27, which you can probably use more or less as is. But to help, I took the foot print and placed capacitors as I would put them on this board:

enter image description here

The designers of this chip were very kind, leaving exactly enough space for each bypass capacitor right where it would most logically fit. As you can see, I've started with the capacitors and made sure they're in tight before routing any signals, connecting planes, etc. I've used 0402, but if you're hand assembling this and don't have a good magnifying lens, 0603 would probably fit more or less the same.

You can put the electrolytics and resistors further out. They're not as critical. I'm also not sure about that ground plane cut in your board or what it is doing. Is there another ground plane you're not showing? If not, you're routing over the cut plane, which is a bad idea, especially with the USB lines. I think you could get rid of it.

user1850479
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  • This has been supper helpful and I really appreciate you pointing out these issues! I'll implement these changes and look into ground loops some more. One last question, I've concerned about the cable picking up EMF and having it be amplified be the chips mic pre-amp. Is this something I should be concerned about, and if so, what would you suggest. One idea I had was to use the chassis ground from the USB and connect it to the TRRS GND sleeve. It might be counterintuitive, but I want to know if that logical thinking is flawed or not. – NCuser Jul 03 '23 at 15:25
  • @NCuser Current loops, not ground loops (I don't think you have a problem with the latter). If you have a shielded cable then you should hook up the shield. The mic input does have a low pass and it's oversampled, but it's hard to say how sensitive it would be to very high frequencies. I'd experiment with both until you get the results you want – user1850479 Jul 03 '23 at 15:35
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You’ll need an EMI filter on the microphone input. Googling “audio emi filter design” should give you some pointers.