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Acid Traps
Due to the surface tension during the etching process, larger deposits of acid may get trapped into certain areas - resulting in over-etching.
Critical: Over-etching will directly effect your board yields and performance.
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Find Net Discrepancy
Search for overlapping copper objects which have different nets defined. This net discrepancy typically occurs when the PCB layout software has incorrectly outputted intelligent formats such as ODB++ and IPC-2581.
Critical: Indicates a potential short originating from the PCB design. May result in poor board performance, failure, or other undesired effects.
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Copper Slivers
Narrow areas in the copper where the potential for over-etching is great. This typically happens when trace angles are 30 degrees (or less), when composites are used, and on plane layers.
Critical: A board can fail if certain copper area are over-etched. Resulting in shorts and decrease in board yield.
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Antennas / Dangling Traces
Search for Non-terminating traces which may behave as an antenna. Such traces may be intentional, but a warning is reported as a precaution.
Elevated Risk: May result in poor board performance, short, or other undesired effect.
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Minimum Clearance: Outer Layers
May cause under-etching on copper areas and/or exceed PCB fabricators capabilities. Resulting in possible opens or shorts.
Critical: May result in poor board performance, short, or other undesired effect.
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Minimum Clearance: Inner Layers
May cause under-etching on copper areas and/or exceed PCB fabricators capabilities. Resulting in possible opens or shorts.
Critical: May result in poor board performance, short, or other undesired effect.
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Minimum Annular Ring: Drill-Pad
Search for all plated drills and ensure they have a minimum copper annular ring. Having a minimum copper annular ring around each drilled hole is required to assure it will be properly fabricated.
Critical: In many cases, drilled holes are not perfectly registered within the exact center of each copper pad. Not having enough of a copper annular ring, may make plating on vias, as well as solder-ability on component holes more difficult. In extreme cases, may result in poor board performance, failure, or other undesired effects.
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Minimum Clearance: Track-Track
Locate tracks (with different nets) on the same signal layer that are placed too close to each other.
Critical: May cause under-etching on copper areas and/or exceed PCB fabricators capabilities. Resulting in poor board performance, short, or other undesired effects.
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Minimum Clearance: Track-Pad
Locate tracks and pads (with different nets) on the same signal layer that are placed too close to each other.
Critical: May cause under-etching on copper areas and/or exceed PCB fabricators capabilities. Resulting in possible opens, shorts, or other undesired effects.
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Minimum Clearance: Pad-Pad
A copper pad on the signal layer is placed too close to other copper pads (with a different net).
Critical: May cause under-etching on copper areas and/or exceed PCB fabricators capabilities. Resulting in possible opens, shorts, or other undesired effects.
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Non-Functional Internal Pads
Essentially these are unconnected internal pads typically found on plane layers.
Elevated Risk: May break loose and cause potential drilling problems, risk of shorts, and more.
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Minimum Pad Size
A very small diameter pad placed on a signal layer. This typically occurs when incorrect pad stacks are defined within the PCB layout software, or an error has occurred when PCB layout software has generated the Gerber data.
Elevated Risk: May cause etching or soldering problems during fabrication. Smaller pads also provide less mechanical support for component leads.
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Clearance from Board Edge
Objects are placed too close or outside the PCB border.
Elevated Risk: May result in exposed copper at the board edge which could lead to corrosion and long term reliability problems.
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Minimum Width: SMT Pad
Locate SMT pads on top/bottom signal layers that have a smaller width than permitted.
Elevated Risk: May cause under-etching and/or uneven pad widths. May also result in poor soldering performance & misalignment during assembly.
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Minimum Clearance: Rout-Copper
Search for Rout paths that are too close to signal objects.
Elevated Risk: During NC routing process, copper may be damaged or result in other undesired effects.
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Minimum Clearance: Same Net
Locate objects on the same net and signal layer that are too close to each other.
Elevated Risk: May cause under - etching on copper areas and / or exceed PCB fabricators capabilities.Resulting in possible opens or shorts.
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Hole Registration
Find drill holes that do no align with copper pads, due to potential rounding errors found in the drill data, or other causes.
Elevated Risk: This may make plating on vias, as well as solder-ability on component holes more difficult. In extreme cases, may result in poor board performance, failure, or other undesired effects.
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Redundant Pads
Duplicate pads are commonly included in the manufacturing data generated from PCB layout software.
Common: This duplication may result in bloated file sizes, potential issues during DFM verification, NC drilling, and your wallet. That's correct your wallet. Many PCB fabricators use pad counts and drill counts as a factor when quoting prices to manufacture a PCB. Having excessive pad and/or drill counts could lead to increased manufacturing costs.
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Minimum Width: Track
Locate tracks which have a smaller width than the allocated distance.
Common: May cause etching problems during fabrication. The smaller the trace width, the lower the yield for the PCB fabricator and the more costly your boards may be.
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