This is a little bit like the old college prank of trying to see how many kids can squeeze into a telephone booth. Pretty soon everyone’s too close for comfort!
In this PCB assembly challenge, someone made a mistake and created a layout for rows of dual-flat no-leads (DFN) SMT packages without taking into account the size of the component bodies. The footprints are too close together, and the bodies of the components are touching.
Because they don’t all fit, as the packages are lined up there isn’t enough room, and alignment issues develop for some of the IC locations. They’re forced off their footprints, while others appear to be acceptable.
As can be seen from the photos (Figures 1 and 2), the crowding causes alignment issues for locations IC1, IC5, IC7, IC9, IC13, and IC15. Locations IC3 and IC11 seem fine.
What can be done? It’s too late to redesign and order new PCBs, and there is no possibility of shrinking the dimensions of the components.
Luckily, the customer had a solution that worked: removal of the components in locations IC5 and IC1 (Figure 3). This permitted the remaining parts to fit correctly; it made “breathing room” for the rest, and best of all, was accomplished without compromising the functionality of the circuit.
