Dr Jefyll wrote:
Not a problem because you're freed from Express PCB's limitations, is that right?...
That may be true. But I should have said that since 2 more SyncRAMs are being added to the design, it's adding slightly more than 1" horizontally to the board dimensions. So for this new board design there will be 2 SyncRAMs, like the pic at the top of this page. The FPGA will be rotated 45degrees. The other 2 SyncRAMs will be to the right of the FPGA.
So with this fact, I was happy to find some cheap high pin-count male/female mating connectors after searching for at least an hour. The 120-pin connector is identical to the 96-pin connector currently in use, just 1" longer. In addition to the 120-pin connector there is also a 150-pin 3-row connector if that is needed.
Dr Jefyll wrote:
...Sounds like you're up and running with KiCAD!
Any further comments on the switch to new software? -- Jeff
Yes, up and running. Very exciting! With some confidence in BGA mounting and the ability to have a 6 layer board manufactured, my madness can be realized!
It took about 2 weeks to learn the flow. In addition to ME being slow and hard headed, I needed to do a board layout without schematics. This seems to be a foreign concept to
most people using KiCAD.
There were some on the #kicad channel on irc.freenode.net that tried to point me in the right direction. They're a great help, great community in there, IC footprints, advice, etc.
In the end all I did was to start with a hierarchical schematic with 4 sheets. Within Sheet 1 was the FPGA, with power(s)/ground pins only. Sheet 2 contained other ICs with the powers/grounds connected to their NETs. Sheet 3 contained all connectors in the same manner. Sheet 4 was the power supply connector and origin of the power/ground NETs.
Did I mention KiCAD lets one rotate a PCB footprint by 'x.0' degrees?