2.10_pcb_footprint_guides.md

PCB Footprint Guides

• Stuart Brorson's footprint guide
• The PCB manual
• The PCB Quick-Reference
• PCB Footprint Naming Conventions : read this to learn how to name your footprint files.
• The PCB FAQ

Footprint basics

• There are two types of footprints: M4 and NEWLIB.
• The best tools for creating footprints are PCB (wysiwyg), TEXT EDITOR (fast, accurate), SCRIPTING (powerful).
• For drawing footprints in PCB, refer to the section about library creation in the PCB manual, look at the part “Creating Newlib Footprints” in the “New Style Libraries” subsection.
• For writing footprints in text, refer to Footprint Creation for the Open-Source Layout Program "PCB" written and maintained by Stuart Brorson.
• For Scripting footprints see the footprint generators page.
• Other things you may find helpful: calculator, paper+pencil, datasheets, calipers, spreadsheet.

Manufacturer references for laying out footprints

• http://www.nxp.com/package
• http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/packaging.jsp
• http://www.maxim-ic.com/design/packaging/
• http://www.national.com/packaging/folders/pkg_index.html
• http://www.irf.com/package/
• http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/supportTechDoc.do?id=1165
• http://www.analog.com/Analog_Root/Packages/Packages_Home/
• http://www.linear.com/designtools/PkgInfo.jsp

Sharing PCB Footprints

• The place to share symbols and footprints is gedasymbols.org
• You can find many PCB footprints at John Luciani's footprint page (Warning: 404 Not Found error).
• You can share gEDA footprints at Open Circuits (Warning: 404 Not Found error).