A Design perspective on non-functional pads: Submitting fab data to "any" fab house on behalf of a large design customer base, we had a tug-of-war from fab house to fab house regarding these pads, sometimes on the same product being multiply-sourced. Sometimes the customer would have an opinion, too. Customers have told us to remove the pads and use the routing space, usually on a .050x.000 pitch PTH connector. They don't have to worry about primary drill @ DTP, compensation/registration, or those other nasty little details. So we've been heading this argument off for a while. We've been asked to remove them on outer layers, also; this caused cleaning problems in fab and assembly processes. Experience showed that non-functional-pads were alot easier to remove than to put back. An ad-hoc survey of CAM software showed that most systems could remove them in a few keystrokes. Our answer evolved to leaving the non-functional cu in place and allowing addition/removal at the fabrication house's discretion. They are the entities responsible for producing non-warped PWB's that survive normal thermal cycling, without shorts or poor yield. We can only try to help foster these goals by not boxing them in. <applying good design practice helps *a little*> Only one fab- rication house has insisted the pads be removed. We also found use in keeping the non-functionals in place for drc, both normal platform drc (some CAD systems don't look at details like drill size) and our own post-gerber checks. Good luck! Jeff Seeger Applied CAD Knowledge Inc Chief Technical Offficer Tyngsboro, MA 01879 [log in to unmask] 508 649 9800