<azonenberg>
broken out to DIP-pitch headers and a JTAG port
<azonenberg>
For scale the caps on the underside are 0402
<soul-d>
:)
<azonenberg>
And the traces are 6 mil / 150um
<bart416>
soul-d, do you etch your own pcbs?
<soul-d>
id be happy if i design somthing with 0805 and some tqfp do have some qfn's around
<soul-d>
do have stuff laying around
<azonenberg>
soul-d: I used to do 0805 and 0.8mm TQFP, moved very quickly to 0603 and 0.5mm
<soul-d>
but not complete drill set :)
<azonenberg>
But now i want to take the big leap
<azonenberg>
into more "hardcore" packages
<azonenberg>
BGA, QFN, 0402
<bart416>
bga is annoying
<azonenberg>
I know it is
<azonenberg>
But a lot of the really cool parts dont offter any alternatives
<azonenberg>
this CPLD does come in both TQFP and QFN
<bart416>
yeah :(
<bart416>
It's a pest
<azonenberg>
But i got the BGA version because it's $1.60 a chip
<azonenberg>
so i can afford to kill several while refining my reflow process :p
<bart416>
I'm looking for some time on the university's pick and place machine at this point actually
<azonenberg>
And not kill a $25 FPGA
<bart416>
The machine only has an error rate of 1 in 1000 or something like that heh
<bart416>
Can't do that at home
<bart416>
azonenberg, why don't you use the university's machines over there to do the BGAs?
<bart416>
I'm sure they have some
<azonenberg>
bart416: I'm not trying to build a board per se
<azonenberg>
i'm trying to develop a process that i can take with me after i graduate
<bart416>
heh
<azonenberg>
I may use their gear the first time, to get started
<bart416>
Here they keep doing it for old students
<azonenberg>
but i want to avoid being dependent on them
<azonenberg>
I may not be living anywhere nearby
<bart416>
Some guy consulted a professor this week (was working in the same lab at the time) on how to build a computer using vacuum tubes btw :')
<azonenberg>
lol
<soul-d>
you did that bga in kicad to ?
<bart416>
The professor started laughing at the guy lol and told him to go and get a life
<bart416>
(keep in mind this is an old guy from the vacuum tube era that is an expert at high frequency design as well, so he's used to things being hard or near impossible to make)
<azonenberg>
soul-d: yes
<bart416>
How good is kicad at bgas?
<azonenberg>
bart416: So far? Decent
<bart416>
You sure?
<azonenberg>
I need to play more, obviously
<azonenberg>
But it handled this little guy just fine
<bart416>
The only program I've found good at auto routing them is orcad/allegro at this point
<azonenberg>
Oh, this was hand routed
<bart416>
ah
<soul-d>
does anybody acrutaly do autoroute ?
<bart416>
yes
<bart416>
Altium and Allegro can do it
<soul-d>
yeah started that stuff up once i din't realy get it :P
<bart416>
You can write an entire book on how to use those auto routers lol
<bart416>
They're also capable of auto placing components taking into account design rules
<bart416>
another thing eagle fails horribly at
<azonenberg>
i've never tried doing something quite that complex lol
<azonenberg>
my biggest board to date was in the 200 component range
<soul-d>
i hate eagle every minitue i use it lol
<soul-d>
im just stocking up on basic components for now
<soul-d>
now im broke ofcourse
<bart416>
I still find myself often just grabbing transparent paper and a marker and drawing the routes by hand...
<soul-d>
i probably make to may mistakes for that
<bart416>
It's good enough for small boards
<bart416>
You should try it once azonenberg
<bart416>
works great for high frequency board as it's pretty much impossible to make sharp corners by hand :)
<azonenberg>
lol
<bart416>
azonenberg, you have some experience with this
<azonenberg>
with what?
<bart416>
What do you think about level triggered flip flops in digital design
<azonenberg>
I've always worked with synchronous design so far
<bart416>
Yeah, but I meant triggered on clock level instead of edge
<azonenberg>
Oh
<azonenberg>
hmm
<azonenberg>
i'm so used to doing edge triggered stuff
* bart416
too
<azonenberg>
never had the chance to fool around much
<bart416>
I mean, I sometimes dare to use a regular RS flipflop in async design
<bart416>
But I'm talking about an entire register bank this time
<azonenberg>
Hmm
<bart416>
The risk of unwanted triggering seems to be fairly high
<azonenberg>
Yes, it does
<azonenberg>
Yay glitches
<bart416>
glitches on the clock are unlikely but yeah, glitches when clock is high...
<azonenberg>
You'd be much more sensitive to skew
<azonenberg>
if data starts changing before your clock falls
<bart416>
yeah
<bart416>
it's risky
<bart416>
I'd have to buffer the input to the flip flops somehow
<bart416>
I can use a S/H circuit for that I guess
<bart416>
but that just seems stupid
<bart416>
Btw forgot to mention, we had to make a guitar distort with our dsp
<bart416>
so the 8 bit wasn't much of an issue
<bart416>
the distort already destroyed so much information anyway that using 8bit wasn't a problem lol
kristianpaul [kristianpaul!~kristianp@cl-498.udi-01.br.sixxs.net] has joined #homecmos
kristianpaul [kristianpaul!~kristianp@unaffiliated/kristianpaul] has joined #homecmos