Here is just one opinion from a lowly circuit board designer:

I would pull together anyone around you who is interested in the subject and
ask them "WHAT DO WE REALLY NEED IN A SILKSCREEN?"

Maybe you will discover that you only need to identify certain types of
components that people down the line would care about, like connectors and
test points and adjustable things like pots and switches. Maybe you can do
that plus ICs and forget about discretes. Maybe just not labelling
bypass/decoupling will give you enough room for the other discretes if
people really want to see them (but I doubt they do) Don't just assume that
a "good" design will show every little thing even if it is all crammed
together and blurry.

Maybe you will discover you don't really need a silk layer at all. It might
depend on the product. If you have no field service beyond "pull the bad one
out and slide a new one in" then does that affect how detailed the
silkscreen needs to be?
If boards are virtually disposable do they need any silkscreen at all?

From my experience, it is more important to the assembly vendor to have a
good clear unambiguous assembly drawing, and the silkscreen isn't as
important once they get everything programmed and one or two prototypes have
been proven to work. ASK THEM.

And some CAD packages allow you to have one "moveable" RefDes on the silk
layer, and another smaller RefDes on the assembly layer in the middle of the
component. Try plotting a scaled up board with RefDes in the center and turn
off the big silkscreen RefDes, it drastically cuts down the guesswork in my
opinion.

Also, PCDesign magazine had a series of articles by Mary Sugden (of the
Copper Connection, Santa Clara, CA) that may help you.

Good Luck,  Jack

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Tamir Ben-Shoshan
[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
        Sent:   Sunday, April 19, 1998 11:38 PM
        Subject:        Silk  limitation

             Hi,

             With the miniaturization of both devices and PCB's there is a
big
             problem with silk description near each device (designators),
some
             time it become to absurd that the designator is bigger than the
device
             it self. Does anyone has any solution or idea regarding this
issue?

             Thanks Tamir

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