pcb design
Pick&Place Generation
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Pick and Place file


It is the file that use for the SMT machine when your PCB board is on the assembly process. The

file assigns the according component to place on the correct soldering land on PCB.

Call it what you may, but surface mount assembly robots need this magic file to determine where

to place your components and how to orient them. We call it a centroid. Others may call it something else, but it’s all basically the same. In our case, the basic format is comma delimited,

in mils:

Ref designator,     Layer,     LocationX,     LocationY,     Rotation
C1 ,                       Top ,           0.5750  ,       2.1000  ,           90

That’s not too difficult. Most CAD programs will automatically create this file for you. 

Now let us review the main EDA design software pick and place file generation:

l  Altium/ DXP /Protel 99/SE

l  Mentor Graphics PADs

l Orcad Allegro 

l Eagle