Use A Chassis Ground

Similar to grounding yourself and a computer tower case before you start pulling things out, you can ground the external casing of your PCB board. By allowing your board and chassis to share a ground, you can improve the grounding of the entire system. One of the easiest ways to implement a chassis grounding is to include a “chassis screw” that connects the ground plane to the chassis. However, you need to make sure you’re using adequate standoffs so other components aren’t crushed or shorted to the casing when the PCB is screwed in. 

Additionally, grounding with a chassis screw makes ESD protection circuits more effective when you’re using transient voltage suppression at inputs. Remember, you’ll want to separate the chassis ground from the digital and analog ground by using inductive components. That way, a discharge into ground won’t accidentally be shared with all your other components.

If you are designing high-speed circuits, you know that they are always more difficult to optimize for performance. This is especially true if you’re routing across multiple ground planes, like a chassis and a PCB layer. The best case scenario is that you can connect the chassis ground directly to an earth ground. If that’s not an option, you should keep all of the ground planes tightly coupled to each other. That will help to minimize any “ground shifts” around key components.