Dave, I've used the IPC-7351 land pattern generator for around 5 years and never had a assembly house complain about component placement issues. I do highly recommend it for both saving time and for minimizing headaches at the assembly house. Typically I use the nominal settings for the components and the courtyards(spacing around the part). Using the courtyards as the placement boundary, I can place them with the boundaries touching (i.e. spacing set to 0). This leaves about 20-25 mils between the physical bodies of the components which is more than enough space for typical parts for pick and place machines. On denser designs or design that have to fit a very small form factor, I occasionally use the "least" setting which still permits enough space between the parts for most pick and place machines. Hope this helps, -Jeffrey ________________________________ JEFFREY A. JENKINS SR. PCB/CAD Designer CID+ L-3 COMMUNICATIONS LINKABIT DIVSION 3033 Science Park Rd. San Diego, CA 92121 Tel: (858) 552-9832 Fax: (858) 552-9487 [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dave Pollum Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 9:06 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [DC] clearance between SMD devices >Dave, > >Check for IPC-7351, the courtyard is what you need. Download the free landpattern calculator or >viewer from www.pcbmatrix.com and look for this info. > >Regards, > >Ioan Tempea, ing. Ioan; So does this mean that If select a medium courtyard that I can have one courtyard touch another courtyard and I'll be OK, or do I need a gap between courtyards? -Dave Pollum ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil. To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL) Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil. To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL) Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil. To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL) Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------