Compare 2 padstacks using SKILL

A padstack is a collection of information that is associated with a pin or a via, used to model different types of pads

A padstack is a file that contains the following information for each layer: • Pad size and shape • Drill size and drill display figure • Mask layers such as Soldermask, Pastemask, and Filmmask

axlLoadPadstack loads a padstack by attempting to find the padstack by name in the existing database. Failing that, Allegro PCB Editor looks in the pad library on the disk. padStackId=axlLoadPadstack("60C85C35D")

If it finds the padstack, padStackId will not be NULL. If you print information about the padstack using padStackId->??, you will get the information about drill, layers span, and the list of pads, as shown in the image

There are 18 pads in this padstack (the number of elements in the pad list), and information about some of the pads is shown in the image below

Total Number of pads = 3* Number of Layers + Soldermask_top + Soldermask_bottom + pastemask_top + pastemask_bottom + filmmask_top + filmmask_bottom

Number of Layers are 4 (TOP, GND, VCC, and BOTTOM) =3 *4 + 6=18

Note that for every layer, three types of pads are defined: Regular, Thermal, and AntiPad. You can confirm it from the Padstack Editor Design Layers

For the maskLayers, the information about the pad from Allegro SKILL and Padstack Editor is shown in the image below:

For more details you can checkout the article On COS here