A footprint or land pattern is the arrangement of
pads
Pads (also called leg guards) are a type of protective equipment used in a number of sports and serve to protect the legs from the impact of a hard ball, puck, or other object of play travelling at high speed which could otherwise cause injuries t ...
(in
surface-mount technology
Surface-mount technology (SMT), originally called planar mounting, is a method in which the electrical components are mounted directly onto the surface of a printed circuit board (PCB). An electrical component mounted in this manner is referred ...
)
or through-holes (in
through-hole technology
In electronics, through-hole technology (also spelled "thru-hole") is a manufacturing scheme in which leads on the components are inserted through holes drilled in printed circuit boards (PCB) and soldered to pads on the opposite side, either ...
) used to physically attach and electrically connect a component to a
printed circuit board
A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich str ...
. The land pattern on a circuit board matches the arrangement of
leads on a component.
Component manufacturers often produce multiple
pin-compatible
In electronics, pin-compatible devices are electronic components, generally integrated circuits or expansion cards, sharing a common footprint and with the same functions assigned or usable on the same pins. Pin compatibility is a property de ...
product variants to allow
systems integrator
A systems integrator (or system integrator) is a person or company that specializes in bringing together component subsystems into a whole and ensuring that those subsystems function together, a practice known as system integration. They also sol ...
s to change the exact component in use without changing the footprint on the circuit board. This can provide large cost savings for integrators, especially with dense
BGA components where the footprint pads may be connected to multiple
layers of the circuit board.
Many component vendors provide footprints for their components, includin
Texas Instruments an
CUI Other sources include third party libraries, such a
SnapEDA
See also
*
Surface-mount technology
Surface-mount technology (SMT), originally called planar mounting, is a method in which the electrical components are mounted directly onto the surface of a printed circuit board (PCB). An electrical component mounted in this manner is referred ...
*
Through-hole technology
In electronics, through-hole technology (also spelled "thru-hole") is a manufacturing scheme in which leads on the components are inserted through holes drilled in printed circuit boards (PCB) and soldered to pads on the opposite side, either ...
*
Chip carrier
In electronics, a chip carrier is one of several kinds of surface-mount technology packages for integrated circuits (commonly called "chips"). Connections are made on all four edges of a square package; compared to the internal cavity for mou ...
*
List of integrated circuit packaging types
Integrated circuits are put into protective packages to allow easy handling and assembly onto printed circuit boards and to protect the devices from damage. A very large number of different types of package exist. Some package types have stan ...
*
IPC
IPC may refer to:
Computing
* Infrastructure protection centre or information security operations center
* Instructions per cycle or instructions per clock, an aspect of central-processing performance
* Inter-process communication, the sharin ...
(standards body)
*
JEDEC
The JEDEC Solid State Technology Association is an independent semiconductor engineering trade organization and standardization body headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, United States.
JEDEC has over 300 members, including some of the w ...
(standards body)
References
Electronic engineering
Electronics manufacturing
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