How Hardware Startups Use High-Speed PCB Design to Beat Noise

In episode 53 of Hardware Startups with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna drill into the overlooked discipline of high-speed PCB design—where a few millimeters of trace routing can make or break a prototype. They anchor on the specific case of a medical-device startup whose Wi-Fi radio kept failing EMC testing because of a 3 mm stub on the antenna feed line. Lucas explains why signal integrity matters for any device with a clock above 50 MHz, and walks through the three most common rookie mistakes: un-terminated transmission lines, split ground planes, and ignoring stack-up symmetry. Luna shares a story from her previous role at a drone startup where a single via-in-pad shortcut caused a 15 dB drop in radio range. Together they debunk the idea that PCB layout is a 'software problem' and argue that founders who treat their first board spin as a learning exercise waste months and money. The episode closes with a practical takeaway: before you send a board to fab, run a 2D field solver on your critical nets. #HardwareStartups #PCBLayout #SignalIntegrity #HighSpeedDesign #EMC #MedicalDevices #DroneTech #WiFi #TraceRouting #TransmissionLines #GroundPlanes #StackUp #ViaInPad #FieldSolver #Prototyping #Business #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo