Hi,
In a project i'm designing i have a pcb in an ABS case 45x45x20mmm with 3mm tick walls and because the case is water proof i have to use two capacitive touch sensor on the top side as user interface.
I've never implemented a touch interface and after reading some docs i have some doubt.
My pcb is 4 layer and i was thinking of using separate ICs to read the sensors.
The doubts that i have are:
1) what pcb stack-up should i use?
a doc by microchip suggests:
• Layer 1 (top): Capacitive sensor pads.
• Layer 2: Capacitive sensor traces.
• Layer 3: GND plane, except under capacitive
sensor pads. Every effort should be made to keep
this ground plane contiguous. This is especially
true for the area under the capacitive sensing
controller.
• Layer 4 (bottom): All components, any LED signal
traces, power traces, and communication traces.
All the breakout boards that i have seen have an hatched ground under the sensors, example:
http://www.adafruit.com/products/1375 .
I was thinking this stack up:
• Layer 1 (top): Capacitive sensor pads.
• Layer 2: GND plane, hatched under the sensor pads
• Layer 3: Power traces
• Layer 4 (bottom): All components, signal traces and the sensors IC that like the breakout that i linked
are very close to the via connected to the sensor pads.
2) For space constraint i have to put other traces and components (ideally only the sensors IC) on layer 4 under the sensors. Is this a "deal breaker"?
Sorry for the long topic and bad english.
Thanks for the help.