back to list

Benefits of a Parts Library
- by Matt Stevenson

PCB design is a necessity in most electronic product development projects.  Some people really enjoy that process and for others it is more of a chore.  PCB design and layout requires several different tools and skill sets to be most effective.  First step in the process of the design and creation is the electrical schematic and the BOM (bill of materials) required to create the physical design.  A well planned schematic linked to your layout tool and availability of the parts contained in the BOM in a digital library can make the layout of the PCB much more efficient.  Hopefully you are able to find all of the parts that you need when you need them. 

One of the more common complaints that we hear from design engineers is that part footprints and symbols take so long to make in their CAD tool, plus there are plenty of opportunities for mistakes to be made.  Unfortunately, in today’s day and age many parts are becoming obsolete and consolidated at such a rapid rate that it is extremely difficult to keep in front of all of the part updates and there will invariably be the need to create a part or two.  Some rely on other members of their design team to create, QC and catalogue new and updated parts, other teams pay a third party to create the parts they need and still others will have to rely on themselves to add new parts to their personal CAD library.  Whichever way is used in your team, it is a cost to the business in terms of time and resources.  Is there a better way to manage parts for a small team or a single designer?  Invariably the answer is a resounding . . . “probably”. 

For a small or overburdened design team there are several third party library options available where you can find and download the parts you are looking for free, most of the time.  There are two main players in this space SnapEDA® and Ultra LibrarianTM.  Both of these companies support a fairly wide range of CAD tool formats, but not all of them.  Several tools available in the market even have an integration with one of these services to make the searching and saving of parts an intuitive part of the CAD tool.  PCB123® is one example of a free to use CAD tool that is integrated with SnapEDA’s parts library.  Sunstone saw that part libraries was a constant pain point for PCB design and integrated its PCB123 tool early in SnapEDA’s development and is still one of only a few free CAD tools to use this powerful library tool.  This integration puts over 10 million parts at your fingertips.   

No matter how your design team is structured, there are definite opportunities to help bolster and streamline the PCB part library portion of the process.  As with anything it makes really good sense to check any parts created by a third party for errors using the part data sheet.  Hole / pad spacing and size are very critical elements of the part footprint and even a small error can mean the difference between the part fitting and not.  So go forth and design to your hearts content working smarter not harder.  Technology can be a very good partner, when it comes to part libraries.