Aesthetic PCB Design Tips for Improved Functionality
hackaday.com
hackaday.com
I can't see how soldermask color would affect placement either, especially not if you place fiducials (or if the fab places them for you!)
For actual production design like the OOP is talking about, you would likely go with whichever option is cheapest overall (which in my experience has universally been the standard green).
Fiducials are automatically placed in top copper, but we also noticed larger misalignments of paste and smaller 01005 passive components (pre-reflow) on non-standard colors. Again, unlikely to cause large yield problems unless you've got a lot of components, but why risk it.
We did still use red for test PCBs so that they wouldn't be shipped to customers. If we were making gaming video cards colors would have been more of a priority.
If I want mega-cheap, green is good. If I want reliability, almost any other color is better.
Where I seem to see issues with green soldermask coverage are tented vias underneath components.
The canonical example is a non-GND via underneath a QFN component with a pad. However, I have also seen issues with vias next to large pads of power transistors where the transistor can "float" around on the solder.
This seems counterintuitive since I would expect the main soldermask color to be used for more BGA-type components where the breakout vias would need to be covered properly. Nevertheless, experience suggests otherwise.
I finally got fed up once and ordered the same PCB with green soldermask for one batch and blue for another. The green ones had some via coverage fails; the blue ones didn't have any. Since then, I've just avoided green soldermask unless I'm going for uber-volume levels of PCBs.
That aside, I don't think there's any plainly bad advice in here. What recommendations do you see as having a negative effect on yield?
Improving PCB manufacturing yield is a very complex discussion which the concept of aesthetics has actually been a major problem in the industry since the 80's when operators would endlessly reflow solder joints until 'they looked good'.
While the rest of the advice is not bad, there are objective reasons why it is better that way other than the subjective reason of aesthetics.
I think you're vastly overstating how much "bad" advice there is in the video, and the degree to which aesthetics are opposed to function. It is possible to get silly (e.g. luridly coloured PCBs, "artistic" routing, and silkscreen-as-canvas), but this video doesn't push very hard.
Phil mostly stresses attention to consistency in placement, routing, and silkscreen, which is 100% solid. A PCB layout is like a schematic: it's read far more than it's written, and efforts to make it legible and coherent have an excellent payoff/effort ratio. Efforts here make bring-up, rework, debugging, and overall comprehension easier for the EEs involved. They also make the design more accessible to non-EEs, which fosters collaboration with mechanical/thermal, assembly, debugging, etc. They may have minor impacts on cost and manufacturability, but the right compromises are usually obvious if the knowledge is there.
There is a design sensibility for PCBs that combines form and function without compromising either. Most experienced EEs can tell with a single glance whether a board was laid out with care by an experienced practitioner or not. I find good PCB design to be beautiful by construction, in the same way that good architecture is beautiful by construction (and not by slapping lipstick on a pig).