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This TechWatch is based on the 2nd Part of the Altium Designer presentation performed at our UK User Conference on the 6th Sept 2005

In this section we will look at implementation of IPC-7351

For the purpose of this TechWatch I have made the files I used available here Download, most of files are based on standard Examples available with Altium Designer 2004.

You may be aware that recently a new IPC standard has been released for surface mount design and land patterns (IPC-7351). So let’s take a quick look at implementing it in Altium Designer.

From the example files within the 4 Port Serial Interface project open Demolib.pcblib.

Here we have a BGA footprint and as you can see we have added a fair amount of mechanical information to it such as an assembly outline and manufacturing courtyard

These mechanical layers are all based on Top Layer placements so if we need to place a component on the bottom layer we will need to setup mechanical Layer pairs in the PCB.

Mechanical Layer pairs can be setup in the Design » Board Layers and Colours dialog box as shown.

We can now go one step further with this component and add in Component Bodies which allow is to precisely define 3D component clearance rules.

Within the library go to Tools » Manage Component Bodies for Current Footprint.

Setup Shape created from bounding rectangle on Mechanical4

(Assembly) and Shape created from bounding rectangle on Mechanical5 (Courtyard) by first selecting the layer you wish it to be added to under the Registration Layer column and then clicking the Add to BGA80P11X11-96 .

Set Overall Height for the Courtyard Top to 0mm and then Close.

You will see its added two regions to our component and if we look at the properties we can alter all of the height and standoff information.  In the next Techwatch, for Part 3 of the Altium Designer presentation performed at our 2005 UK User Conference, we shall look at the ability to use these component bodies with the 3D viewer.

This BGA has been created using Nominal Pad sizes we could if we wish copy this have a separate library for Maximum or Least Material condition land sizes.

Create a New Library using File » New » Library » PCB Library.

We can now copy our existing component to the new library and perform a global change to the pads.

RMB click on BGA80P11X11-96 and then Copy.

Go to your new library RMB click Paste 1 Component. Change the units of the new library to metric (Q is the speed key for this) and type IsPad in the Filter panel to select all of the pads then use the Inspector panel to increase size to 0.4mm.