What's Good About Allegro PCB Editor Suppression of Unassigned Indirect Vias? 16.6 Has It!

The suppression of unassigned indirect vias is now supported in Allegro PCB Editor 16.6, which assigns the property ‘EMB_INDIRECT_VIA_SUPPRESS’ to the Component Definition, Component Instance, or Symbol Pin. If a component is placed on an ‘Indirect Attached’ embedded layer, this new property suppresses ALL via pads associated with the component if the PIN is not on a named net.  The indirect attach via pads will only be restored if:

• The symbol pin changes to a named net
• The symbol is moved to a layer which is not an indirect attach
• The property is removed

Read on for more details …

Consider an Allegro PCB Editor .brd file with the following ‘Embedded Layer Setup’ form content, and review the strategy for this design:

 

Removing unassigned symbol vias is primarily done to free up space for routing.  Use Edit – Property and, as an example,  assign the property ‘emb_indirect_via_suppress’ to some BGAs. The property must be assigned to the ‘Component’ element in the database. Check your find filter:


 

Review the results noting the removal of several symbol vias on each component:


 

Delete the suppression property to ensure all symbol vias are restored. Move one of the components to an outer layer to ensure the original SMD pins are restored.

Please share your experiences using this new capability.

Jerry “GenPart” Grzenia