I’m slowly routing my way through my first SMD board, which has way too many parts in way not enough area (but if you’re gonna jump in, you might as well jump in the deep end). I’ve been submitting the design occasionally to see if I’m making any stupid mistakes, but I think the DRCBot is passing some designs that don’t meet the 2-layer 8mil rules. The screenshot below shows a trace that I think is too close to the pad – it’s only 6.527 mil away. I assume the fab house can make that, since they make 6mil/6mil for 4-layer boards, but it’s too close for the 2-layer rules. Am I going to be unhappy if I try to run this board? (I know I’m going to have a helluva time stuffing it…)
Why don’t you move the two via’s to the right, then straighten out that signal?
I haven’t submitted any designs to the new Bot, but the previous Bot (do these things have names?) would let 7mil line, 7mil space designs pass, which I needed for one footprint. (100 pin TQFP PIC32) Even though they said 8/8 with 20mil drills, I did my designs at 7/7 15 mil drills, and that was the absolute smallest it would let pass. And all of my boards have worked so far.
I sure hope the new Bot doesn’t actually enforce the 8/8 20mil drill rules.
*Brian
That's how I fixed that spot, but it still doesn't tell me what rules the DRCBot is checking. However, a simple test layout *does* tell me. It looks like 7mil traces, 7mil spacing, and 12/6 vias are OK. Anything smaller and you'll still get an "everything is OK!" email, but the errors show up in pink or orange on the images. (I can't believe 12/6 vias are actually good, but I'm not going to screw around any more looking for the minimum drill size.)Shifted:
Why don’t you move the two via’s to the right, then straighten out that signal?
By the way, the DRCBot appears to be sloppy with file cleanup. Sometimes I’d upload a new test with the same name, but get the old test files back. Best bet is to rename all the files every time.
