Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1337116
10 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2021 When we began planning this month's issue of Design007 Magazine, we looked at some of our recent surveys to get a feel for some of your pain points. ese surveys are a great resource for us; they let us hear directly from the horse's mouth—in this case, the mouths of designers and design engineers. In our last few sur- veys, many respon- dents mentioned foot- prints among their most common headaches. As always, the comments were illustrative. Here is a sample of the com- ments: • Legacy issues with libraries, including traceability of footprints when used on PCBs across multiple projects over several years • Wrong component footprints • Incorrect footprint (smaller) • Footprints are changed but not documented • Errors on new footprints • Incorrect footprints, as in just wrong (never been used previously, dimensionally incorrect) I hear this sort of thing all the time from younger and veteran designers alike. As you can see, these issues all begin in the CAD library. If you don't have traceability for foot- prints that are used on a variety of PCBs over the years, you have a serious problem. When your design- ers are changing foot- prints and not docu- menting the changes, you're just asking for trouble. Who's running your CAD library any- way? e last comment on the list above is my favor- ite! You can tell by the "as in just wrong" snide remark that the respondent is exasperated by the whole situ- ation. It makes you wonder: Who signed off on these new footprints that were dimensionally incorrect? Does the company even have a sign- off process? If so, does it include a quarantine for new footprints? It seems a little too easy for bad data to wander into this respondent's CAD library. It sounds like this company needs to install a Ring doorbell on their library so they can see who's coming and going. In addition to bad or non-existent library management processes, there is another culprit: footprint creation itself. It's not a fun The Shaughnessy Report by Andy Shaughnessy, I-CONNECT007 Footprints and Library Management