SMT007 Magazine

SMT007-Mar2021

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48 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2021 unknown to me. I voiced my concerns about using this resource, and the importance of library parts being accurate and correct. Vino assured me that we'd be okay because this com- pany came with high recommendations from a trusted source. I trust Vino, so a few meetings later, everything was put into motion. e design at hand was a small, complex backplane card targeted for the end-product to go to a data center customer. e PCB mea- sured 8" x 3." It had 14 layers, 0.062" thick, with about 1,000 parts, and eight cluster mod- ules containing 2 x 2.5 Gbps per link on each of these modules. is is a high-speed digital design, with around 40 Gbps data rates and very fast edge rates. It also featured two addi- tional daughter cards, two network switches and a backplane controller BGA consisting of several hundred pins. e team worked like crazy and hit all the initial targeted phase gates within the project schedule. Aer lots of analy- ses done on the design, including a final DFM check, the design went out for fabrication as scheduled, with no apparent issues. Happy ending! Or was it? A Library Management Cautionary Tale Article by Stephen V. Chavez PCEA e library management of footprints, land patterns, or cells—however you refer to them in your ecosystem—is one of the most criti- cal items in the foundation of any PCB or CCA design. When I was asked to write an article on this topic, so many thoughts and experiences instantly flooded my mind. Aer 30+ years of designing PCBs throughout the industry, I have my share of experiences and stories about footprints. One particular experience stands out—a project that I consulted on several years ago. My friend Vino asked if I could support a proj- ect that he was about to kick off. I said sure, as I had worked with him many times before. We discussed the initial PCB layout details, and we noted the extremely tight, aggressive schedule he was up against. As we were planning our attack, the topic of library part creation came up, as usual. But this time, Vino wanted to farm out the library efforts to a third-party company that was

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