Hi, i’m trying to create board layout for an SMD GPS antenna. I want it to follow manufacturer’s specification. Here’s element footprint, which i’ve used to create KiCad footprint:
I’m not sure how to proceed with this. On recommended layout, pins 6 (feed) and 1 (ground) are connected through copper area, and there is second copper area which connects these two to ground.
I tried to do following:
put keepout area around entire footprint to reflect ground plane border seen on recommended layout
put two copper zones to connect pads 1,6 and ground plane, as on recommended layout (on a schematic, i’ve connected both pads 1 and 6 to ground). Copper zones are specified as ground.
Keepout keeps out the zones, so it’s natural that the zones aren’t filled. But why do you want to use zones for connecting the pads, why not just wide tracks?
On recommended layout, copper strip which connects pad 1 and pad 6 to ground plane is placed just above pad 6, not directly in the center of it. I would like to keep dimensions of the recommended layout (i think it’s important, as this is RF stuff), and KiCad will force routing of the track from the center of the pad, so laying this out using zones seems like the best idea to do it exactly as on recommended layout.
A track on top of a pad doesn’t add more copper on the pad. The same for a track on top of a zone. Overlapping copper in the layout is not taken in account at the manufacturing process as double copper thickness.
Anyway, it is possible to draw a zone as in the example. The keepout zone must be placed only where you do not want any copper.
