| IPC7351A Package Creator :: Screen Shot and Explanation [message #59648] |
Wed, 06 February 2008 01:31 |
 James Morrison
Messages: 704
Registered: November 2004 |
Senior Member |
|
|
Hello everyone,
People have been asking me how this tool works. So to help describe it I've posted a screenshot below.
To use this tool you first select the library in which you want to create the package. All libraries that are in the Control Panel Directory Path will be listed in the drop-down box named "Libraries in Use". If you run this from the library editor then the text box will default to the library being edited. Select the target library from the drop-down box, browse to a library not in the path, or enter the library path and name by hand.
Then you enter the IPC7351A package parameters. I typically get these from the IPC7351 LP Viewer that is a free download from PCB Libraries. This will list all the parameters necessary for this tool. Once you get used to these parameters they become second-nature. I believe that you can also calculate these parameters from the standard itself but I have never done that.
You can select between the following categories of packages: BGA, LCC, QFN, QFP, SOIC, SOJ, SON, and SOP. For anything smaller its just as easy to do by hand I find (resistors, caps, ...).
When all the data is entered hit the "Update Info" button and it will auto-generate the package name based on the naming standard that is part of IPC7351A. If you want, you can edit this field as well to meet whatever naming standard you use. To create the package click on "Create Package" and the package will be created in the selected library.
In order to minimise complexity of the development and UI, this tool doesn't handle BGA's that don't have full arrays of balls. You can enter the "Ball Quantity" as the number of balls that are actually present on the device and that will be used in the name of the package. But the tool will still created AXB balls (the full array) and you'll have to go through and manually delete the balls that shouldn't be there. This is usually pretty easy. I have some ideas on how to handle this case. But it is certainly easier to delete a few groups of balls than to have to do 1000 by hand smile
Hopefully that helps explain this tool a bit better. I have developed this and used it extensively over the last few years. It has saved countless hours of work for sure. I hope you all find it as valuable as I do.
Screen shot below... BTW, this was taken using the new Beta running natively in Mac OS X (Tiger).
~ James Morrison ~ james@eagletoolkit.com ~ www.eagletoolkit.com
~ Online EAGLE Dealer for US and Canada
~ EAGLE Design Experts
~ EAGLE Enterprise Toolkit Author
James Morrison ~~~ Stratford Digital
Specializing in CadSoft EAGLE
* Online Sales to North America
* Electronic Design Services
* EAGLE Enterprise Toolkit
|
|
|
] 
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
