Tag Archives: Eagle CAD

Beagle CAD Paw Prints

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Unfortunately, I can’t generically hand out Eagle CAD QFN footprints without knowing the specific part, but I can illustrate the areas I initially had difficulty with. All of the traps that used to get me seem blindingly obvious now, but they weren’t when I first tried to make my own library parts.

The very first thing I would recommend is to make your own library file. When I started in with my own parts, I would just add them to an existing library. For example, I’d put a new Microchip PIC processor into the “microchip.lbr” library. It seemed the logical choice because there are other similar parts to start with. But, when it’s time to upgrade, migration of those custom parts becomes a nightmare. So, now all of my custom parts go into “dfb-parts.lbr.” Eagle footprint menu bar.

Speaking of modifying existing parts, another recommendation I have is, except for parts where the package footprint is exactly the same, start from scratch with the package footprint. The schematic symbol is easier to reuse – just make sure you have the right pins in the right place – but subtle differences in the copper footprint can have a big difference at the assembly stage. Datasheet footprint page land pattern.

I also don’t try to hand size and hand position the pads on the silk screen. Start by just putting a pad in the footprint area. The use the Properties/Info button (the big “i”) and use the dimensions given in the data sheet to enter the size and position by number. Look for the “recommended land pattern” or similar diagram toward the end of the component datasheet. Entering the numbers in the Properties/Info box will bypass any position precision issues. Just make sure that you use the right units (i.e., metric to metric).

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Duane Benson
World to end at 9:30. Details at 11:00

 

QFN Custom Stencil Layer in Eagle

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It’s been said over and over that you don’t want to leave the solder paste opening wide open for a QFN center pad. A 50 to 75% paste coverage will get the best results. With full coverage, your QFN can end up floating too high and not connecting with all of the pads due to their significantly smaller aperture.
But how do you create a custom paste layer? In Eagle, it’s not terribly obvious, but it is easy. Open the part that you want to customize in the Eagle Library editor. Open up the package for that component. Now, select “i” on the left side and click on the center pad. You might need to turn off the “tcream” layer in order to select the pad.

In the Properties dialog box, uncheck the check box for cream. That will get rid of the standard stencil layer. Now you can use the rectangle tool to add in stencil cut-outs as you want the. Make sure you set the layer for the rectangle to be “tcream” and remember that you are drawing the cut-outs of the stencil, not the blocked part.

Obviously it will be different for every CAD package, but the concept is the same. As is the need to do so.

Duane Benson
The Internet is weird.
There’s actually a website for paste eaters.

http://blog.screamingcircuits.com/

Centroid/XYRLS/Pick-and-Place

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Call it what you may, but surface mount assembly robots need this magic file to determine where to place your components and how to orient them. We call it a centroid. Others may call it something else, but it’s all basically the same. In our case, the basic format is comma delimited, in mils:

Ref designator,     Layer,     LocationX,     LocationY,     Rotation
C1 ,                       Top ,           0.5750  ,       2.1000  ,           90

That’s not too difficult. Most CAD programs will automatically create this file for you. Eagle doesn’t natively, but we have a ULP to do it for you in Eagle (downloaded here). Again, no problems here. Mostly…

I say mostly because, at this point, you are at the mercy of the person who created the CAD library part. Provided they center the origin and follow the IPC for orientation, everything should come out just fine. Unfortunately, we do find parts that don’t follow those rules. We’ll do our best to catch and correct such things here, but for maximum reliability, check you library components to make sure. We find the problem crops up most commonly with passives.

IPC says that zero orientation for two pin passives is horizontal, with pin one on the left. For polarized capacitors, pin one is (+). For diodes, pin one is the cathode. They note that pin one is always the polarity mark pin or cathode. Pin one is also on the left for resistors, inductors and non-polarized capacitors, but left vs. right doesn’t matter so much with non-polarized things. The most common orientation error we see is to have the “zero rotation” 270 degrees off from the IPC standard.

Every now and then we’ll find that someone assumes that since usually the anode on a diode tends to be on the positive side, that the anode should be pin one. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Duane Benson
Is it pulling electrons of pushing holes?

http://blog.screamingcircuits.com/