Organisation of footprints

Land patterns for electronics components are being
standardised, the the result of those latest efforts is
the IPS-7351. This a document by IPC, which is an
industry standards body. It specifies the land patterns
for a large number of components, particularly surface
mount ones. Algorithms are provided which compute these
land patterns based on certain parameters of the solder
joint.

This information is well presented in the PCB Libraries
Land Pattern Viewer program
(http://landpatterns.ipc.org/default.asp). Its help
file also specifies the naming convention for land
patterns, which can also be found here
(http://landpatterns.ipc.org/IPC-7351Table3-15September2005.pdf)

With the above in mind, i suggest that the
footprint/land pattern library in PCB names and
categorises land patterns in the same manner as the
Land Pattern Viewer program. It sorts in several ways
so its easy to find the right land pattern.

There are too many part numbers out there to put down
in the libraries, and what really matters is
identifying the right land pattern. since the component
package (sometimes even the original JEDEC or IEC
standard name is given) is specified in the component
datasheet, this could be input into the library, which
will return the correct landpattern and its name.

Just suggesting that for greater ease in selecting the
right pads more quickly, by categorising based on land
pattern name (corelated to common and official package
names) instead of by part name.