Most PCB design courses give you a blinking LED or a breakout board. The Smart USB Thumb Drive with KiCad course gives you something you can plug into a computer and use.
This is a full design project built from the ground up in KiCad: a USB thumb drive with 64 GB of eMMC storage, a USB-to-eMMC bridge controller, onboard power management, and an RP2040 microcontroller running an independent monitoring path with temperature and power telemetry.
What you design and build
The board is built around four key ICs:
- SMSC USB2244-AEZG-06: a USB 2.0 to eMMC bridge controller, configured via an external AT24C04 EEPROM that holds the USB descriptor data
- Micron MTFC64GAPALBH-IT: a 64 GB eMMC in a 0.5 mm pitch BGA package
- Raspberry Pi RP2040: handles temperature and power monitoring independently of the storage path
- SY8253ADC buck converter and LM66100 ideal diode: manage the 5V to 3.3V conversion and dual-port power OR-ing
The storage path (USB2244 + eMMC) and the monitoring path (RP2040) are entirely separate. That separation is deliberate, and the course explains the design reasoning behind it.
What the course covers
Approximately 80 lectures across 10 modules, with over 25 hours of 4K video covering:
- Component selection: reading datasheets, understanding what USB2244 needs to work, choosing eMMC, specifying passives
- Schematic design: full schematic in KiCad, including the EEPROM configuration circuit, power path, and RP2040 monitoring subsystem
- PCB stackup and signal integrity: impedance control theory and calculations, 2-layer vs 4-layer tradeoffs, when and why each stackup matters
- BGA fanout: routing a 0.5 mm pitch BGA, via strategies, and what a real fabricator will and won’t support
- USB differential pair routing: length matching, impedance targets, clearance rules
- eMMC signal integrity: length matching across the data bus
Who this is for
This course is for designers who already know KiCad and want to work on something that pushes past simple breakout boards.
If you’re new to KiCad, start with KiCad Like a Pro first. That course covers the fundamentals, like schematic capture, footprint assignment, PCB layout, and design rule checks. The new course builds on these skills. Coming into the Smart USB Thumb Drive project without that foundation will make the early modules harder than they need to be.
You don’t need a background in USB protocol internals or eMMC architecture. Both are explained from first principles where they matter for the design. What you do need is confidence working in KiCad and a willingness to read a datasheet.
Launch discount
For the first week after launch, the course is available at 30% off the regular price. No coupon needed, the discount applies automatically at checkout.
What is this project about?
A USB thumb drive is a well-understood product. That’s exactly why it makes a good teaching project — the design constraints are real, the component choices are non-trivial, and there’s a working reference point at the end. The eMMC BGA is genuinely difficult to route at 0.5 mm pitch. The USB differential pair has an impedance target that matters. The power path has to handle two voltage domains without interference.
None of that is artificially difficult. It’s just what a real board looks like.
If you want to move from designed-by-tutorial PCBs to designed-by-engineering PCBs, this project is a reasonable place to start doing that.