Is it possible to do SIP design in KiCad?

I was wondering if is it possible to do System In Package design with KiCad. If there is any kind of support.

What sort of support would you want to have in KiCad for this?

I don’t know much about this, but had a short look around. Most of it is stacking silicon dies on top of each other and connect them in various ways (from solder bumps to bond wires) and that is more of an IC design area then PCB layout, but apparently there is also an overlap with ceramic hybrids.

My gut feeling is there is currently not much incentive in this direction. There are still a relatively small amount of developers (and developer hours) available in the KiCad project and there a lot of feature requests, improvement idea’s and ideas for new features on gitlab (Some 800+). Maybe there are already feature requests for (parts of) this on gitlab. You can have a look and upvote them or add some comment.

Another option is to contact https://www.kipro-pcb.com/. They do commercial support for KiCad, and also do priority development, as long as it fits within the overall goals of the KiCad project.

And also, KICad is an Open Source project. If you can do some development yourself, or can find someone who can do this, they can just clone KiCad, work on it and implement your personal features. But if you want those features to become merged back into mainstream KiCad, they of course have to fit within KiCad’s overall goals. If you’re interested in this direction, then start with https://dev-docs.kicad.org/en/getting-started/index.html

I don’t think you’ll find any specific support for System In Package in Kicad.

If you go back to basics, Kicad lets you create a “PCB”: the output from Kicad is actually just a set of gerber ‘drawings’ which the PCB manufacturer uses to create the PCB… which in fact was NOT the original purpose of gerbers! (they were designed to control things like milling machines).

So, if the System In Package manufacturing process can (mis-)use the PCB gerbers in some way, you’re in luck. I guess you need to talk to the manufacturer, and find out what they require.

No. Not true. See: Photoplotter - Wikipedia

The first photoplotter was introduced by Gerber Scientific, Inc. in the 1960s.[5][6]: 17- The company’s file standard, the Gerber format for PCB files, eventually became an industry standard for describing the printed circuit board images such as the copper layers, solder mask and legend.[7][8]: 244-

It is true that this format has an overlap with the file format of G-code (The oldest “programming language” still in use. It has it roots in the late '50-ies), and they almost certainly started with G-code to create the format for the first Gerber file format. Encoding of coordinates and movement is in the same manner, but Gerbers have apertures and flash codes, while G-code has “tools”.

I stand corrected, I hadn’t realised that. The Wikipedia articles are insightful… and I spotted that G-code was standardised as RS-274, whilst Gerber became RS-274X… clearly a close link there.

Hey, if that original G-code was textual, I guess we could say that it was made up of ‘G-strings’ :rofl:

Back to the original post (says he, trying hard to stay on topic!), you know anything about ‘System In Package’ design with KiCad?

It depends on what type of SiP design you want. If you need a SiP with an LGA type of connection on the bottom of a substrate with components soldered on top and covered with some shield – it’s doable in KiCAD. If you want 2.5D SiP, KiCAD is probably not the tool you need.

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