User's Manual

BTLC1000-MR110CA [DATA SHEET]

Atmel-42376B-BTLC1000 Hardware Design Guide_02102015

4 4

Parameter Min Max Units Description Notes

BIO

0 ms VBATT rise to VDDIO rise

VBATT and VDDIO can rise simultaneously or

can be tied together.

IOCE

0 ms VDDIO rise to CHIP_EN rise

CHIP_EN must not rise before VDDIO. CHIP_EN

must be driven high or low, not left floating.

2 Application Information

The BTLC1000-MR110 module is fully self-contained. To use the module, just provide VBAT and VDDIO

supplies. See Table 2 for the recommended voltages.

3 Placement and Routing Guidelines

It is critical to follow the recommendations listed below to achieve the best RF performance:

• The board should have a solid ground plane. The center ground pad of the device must be solidly connected to

the ground plane by using a 3 x 3 grid of vias. Each ground pin of the module should have a ground via placed

either in the pad or right next to the pad going down to the ground plane.

• When the module is placed on the motherboard, a provision for the antenna must be made. There should be

nothing under the portion of the module which contains the antenna. This means the antenna should not be

placed directly on top of the motherboard PCB. This can be accomplished by, for example, placing the module

at the edge of the board such that the module edge with the antenna extends beyond the main board edge by

6.5mm. Alternatively, a cut out in the motherboard can be provided under the antenna. The cutout should be at

least 22mm x 6.5mm. Ground vias spaced 2.5mm apart should be placed all around the perimeter of the

cutout. No large components should be placed near the antenna.

• Keep away from antenna, as far as possible, large metal objects to avoid electromagnetic field blocking.

• Do not enclose the antenna within a metal shield.

• Keep any components which may radiate noise or signals within the 2.4GHz – 2.5GHz frequency band far

away from the antenna or better yet, shield those components. Any noise radiated from the main board in this

frequency band will degrade the sensitivity of the module.

3.1 Power and Ground

Dedicate one layer as a ground plane. Make sure that this ground plane does not get broken up by routes.

Power can route on all layers except the ground layer. Power supply routes should be heavy copper fill planes

to insure the lowest possible inductance. The power pins of the module should have a via directly to the power

plane as close to the pin as possible. Decoupling capacitors should have a via right next to the capacitor pin and

this via should go directly down to the power plane – that is to say, the capacitor should not route to the power

plane through a long trace. The ground side of the decoupling capacitor should have a via right next to the pad

which goes directly down to the ground plane. Each decoupling capacitor should have its own via directly to the

ground plane and directly to the power plane right next to the pad. The decoupling capacitors should be placed

as close to the pin that it is filtering as possible.