Reverse Engineering Printed Circuit Board Footprints
Printed Circuit Board Footprint is a set of copper pads that corresponds directly to the component leads. This step is one of the most crucial steps to Reverse Engineering Printed Circuit Board. Any mix-up in a footprint WILL ruin your entire design.
Therefore extra-special care must be taken when matching a footprint to the corresponding component. To get to the footprint library manger, first open OrCAD Layout, and click on Tools → Library manager.
When selecting a footprint for a specific component, you must check the components data sheet, and take note of all of its dimensions. For instance, if your component uses an SOIC package, there are certain dimensions that the designer must pay attention to.
If there are numerous packages for each chip, and you have a choice, I would recommend using the SOIC package. It is not hard to solder, and it is not so large that the chip takes up unnecessary room. The SOIC package is a Surface Mount (SMT) IC which many chips are manufactured in.
This is different from the breadboard mountable DIP packages which we are often used when carry out PCB card Reverse Engineering analysis. The pins physically mount through the board, and the chips are often larger then necessary and take up extra space.
There are also different IC packages such as TSSOP and certain QFP packages which are very small, infact, they will cause trouble later on when you are trying to solder the board especial high speed PCB Reverse Engineering. The SOIC package is a great package for these applications when we are making our own boards, and soldering them as well.
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