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AssigneeMentor Graphics Corporation
InventorNataraj Akkiraju
Estimating the term…
The present invention beneficially provides a method and apparatus for automatically removing acid traps from a hatched fill in a printed circuit board design. The printed circuit board design includes a cross-hatched fill area comprising boundary lines and cross-hatched lines within the boundary lines. Furthermore, the boundary lines and cross-hatched lines have a particular aperture. The printed circuit board design is automatically modified to fill partial hatch areas, if any, in the cross-hatched fill area. In one embodiment, the cross-hatched fill area is converted to a bit map of one dimensional edges representing the lines in the cross-hatched fill area. In this embodiment, partial hatch areas are identified based on the bit map, and edges are added in the identified partial hatch areas. Then, the embodiment converts the additional edges into corresponding lines in the printed circuit board design, wherein the lines have the particular aperture, to fill the partial hatch areas.
A method to design printed circuit boards, the method comprising:
A machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon machine-readable instructions, the execution of said machine-readable instructions to implement a method to design printed circuit boards, the method comprising:
An apparatus to design printed circuit boards, the apparatus comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.