Hi All,
New to pcb layout and KiCAD. I’m creating a PCB to be as a carrier for a Si.P. chip. I have the pcb cutout imported and now I want to route traces. The problem I’m having right now is I can’t put pads down. The pad button is missing from the right side bar menu. I went straight to Pcbnew without making a schematic as there is no components except for the Si.P. chip itself. Any ideas why I can’t place pads?
you have to make footprints which involve the pad(s) that you want…
Depending on how you go about this Si P chip footprint with breakout pads included (not advised) or Si P chip footprint + pad footprint(s) and if you want DRC to work or not you have to start with a schematic.
In either way, you need to make pad footprint(s) in the footprint editor.
Thanks I will play with footprints and see what I can do. I just want to place pads near the chip to wirebond to them, will this be possible with footprints?
Don’t see a problem with that.
You essentially draw the footprint you want/need in the footprint editor and not in pcbnew as your originally had planned. And then you plug it onto the pcb and have it made…
Question for you though, do you also want to solder on those pads? If so, I would be careful to get enough distance between the soldering area and the wirebonding area, as the latter is pretty fragile (at least mine were back when I did some wirebonding, dunno what wire you’re using 
).
Thanks Joan_Sparky,
No soldering needed just gold wirebonds to the pad. Thanks again, I will play with the footprint editor! I also need to make a cavity for the chip, which is about 63mm depth, what do I need to consider when making this cavity in the pcb design? The traces will only be on the top layer, so I believe this is called a single layer…
As you have no castellations nothing really… it then only depends on the accuracy of the mill you got and if it can handle some copper, so yeah… nothing really.
And I guess you mean 63 um.
Oh yeah… if the chip surface needs to be at the same height as the copper of the pads… you naturally need to be careful, but I’m sure you have that one down.
Once you’re done a pic of it all would be pretty cool 
Yea I’ll add some progress pictures and yea i believe it’s 6.3 mm need to confirm haha. 
I haven’t made much progess on this and I need to get something soon so I’m changing the requirements for a short term solution. I need to replicate only half of the white PCBA board (pictured) the traces are on the top surface since it’s an edge connected board. I took the measurements so I have the dimensions. What I don’t understand is if this should be copper surfaces (or called copper fills) or traces on the front Cu layer? Traces aren’t exposed so it doesn’t make sense to me. I put a trace as an example of where the first one should be located. I made a footprint of the Tx die with the pads needed. These pads will be Au wire ball-bonded to the Tx die. Any input would be appreciated, thanks!
In short: use whatever works best for you.
To expose the copper for the edge-connector, simply place a filled zone on the corresponding mask layer on top. This needs to be done for both traces or copper zones.
Ahhh ok, I was actually reading about copper zones right now on the Pcbnew document. Thanks!
I now understand how to do exposed copper 
but my problem is the copper ground plane is an
“island” and I can’t get the traces to connect to it. I think this has to do with Net list. My problem is I went straight to PCB design, does this mean I need to go back to schematic? Is there a way to get around this?
I extended my traces beyond the edge of the board, will this be ok? I know it’s not the most elegant approach. 
Thanks!
disable DRC in > Preferences > General > Options/Enforce Design Rules
Boardhouse? will take care of that, don’t expect copper on the edge though unless you have discussed that with them.
Great thanks Joan_Sparky!
Joan_Sparky, I disabled DRC but I don’t see any changes, any thoughts to why? The traces still don’t connect to the copper zone.
Thanks.
Sorry, I thought that might work, but it doesn’t… note to self: always test before post
I guess that the copper in your last screenshot (traces, pads, zones) are all such primitives, no footprints, right?
If you are keen and don’t want to redraw this you can make a very simple schematic with just 2 connectors to get a net, add some pad footprints, create the netlist and get your pcb on track by editing the kicad_pcb file in a text editor to get all those primitives onto that net.
If you send me your kicad_pcb I can do that for you - as I did lead you on the ice there.
