pcb design - How should I connect AGND and DGND

I have been reading about grounding in a mixed signal systems. Do I get it correct that it is best to group analog and digital elements and then have a single ground plane, as long as the digital routes do not pass through analog part, and analog routes do not pass through the digital part?

The highlighted part on the left figure shows the analog ground and the right one highlights the digital ground for the same circuit. The component on the right side is a 80 pin MCU with 3 sigma-delta ADC converter.

Is it better to

1. let the AGND and DGND to be tied on ADC of the MCU


2. connect the DGND and AGND through an inductor/resistor


3. have a single ground-plane (DGND = AGND)?

P.S. as I read the aim is to prevent DGND to disturb the AGND, I defined main ground-plane as AGND

Answer

Combining digital and analog grounds is quite a contentious issue, and is might well fire up a debate/argument. A lot of it depends on whether your background is analog, digital, RF etc. Here is some comments based on my experience and knowledge, which is likely to differ from other peoples (I am mostly digital/mixed signal)

It really depends on what kind of frequencies you are running at (digital I/O and analog signals). Any work on combining/separate grounds will be a work in compromise - the higher the frequencies you are operating at, the less you can tolerate inductance in your ground return paths, and the more relevant ringing will be (a PCB that oscillates at 5GHz is irrelevant if it measures signals at 100Khz). Your main aim by separating grounds is to keep noisy return current loops away from sensitive ones. You can do these one of several ways:

Star Ground

A fairly common, but quite drastic approach is to keep all digital/analog grounds separate for as long as possible and connect them together at one point only. On your example PCB, you would track in digital ground separately and join them at the power feed most likely (power connector or regulator). The problem with this is when your digital needs to interact with your analog, the return path for that current is half across the board and back again. If it's noisy, you undo a lot of the work in separating loops and you make a loop area to broadcast EMI across the board. You also add inductance to the ground return path which can cause board ringing.

Fencing

A more cautious and balanced approach to the first one, you have a solid ground plane, but try to fence in noisy return paths with cut outs (make U shapes with no copper) to coax (but not force) return currents to take a specific path (away from sensitive ground loops). You are still increasing ground path inductance, but much less than with a star ground.

Solid Plane

You accept that any sacrifice of the ground plane adds inductance, which is unacceptable. One solid ground plane serves all ground connections, with minimal inductance. If you're doing anything RF, this is pretty much the route you have to take. Physical separation by distance is the only thing you can use to reduce noise coupling.

A word about filtering

Sometimes people like to put a ferrite bead in connect to different ground planes together. Unless you're designing DC circuits, this is rarely effective - you're more likely to add massive inductance and a DC offset to your ground plane, and probably ringing.

A/D Bridges

Sometimes, you have nice circuits where analog and digital is separated very easily except at an A/D or D/A. In this case, you can have two planes with a line of separation that runs underneath the A/D IC. This is an ideal case, where you have good separation and no return currents crossing the ground planes (except inside the IC where it is very controlled).

NOTE: This post could do with some pictures, I'll have a look around and add them a bit later.