Data Sheet

LABCENTER ELECTRONICS LTD.
124
Routing the Board
Having configured the board constraints we can now move on to actually making connections
and routing the board.
Teardrops
Teardrop functionality is included in the Advanced Feature Set and requires a
license for PCB Design Level 2 or higher.
Placing teardrops at the connection point between track and pad is often useful in preventing
drill breakout during board manufacture. We can configure teardrops from the Set Teardropping
command on the Technology Menu.
The dialogue form lets us set the maximum annular ring size on a pad below which a teardrop
connection will be made and then also lets us set the length of the teardrop. You can, if you
want, also apply teardrops to surface mount pads although we are not aware of any
manufacturing reason for doing so. On surface mount pads the annular ring parameter is
considered to be center pad to nearest pad edge.
A per pad override for setting/clearing a teardrop connection can be accessed from the edit
single pin dialogue. This provides an additional level of control over where teardrop connections
are made.