Removal of Non Functional Pads

[Bert Timmerman]

Can be done by removing "non-functional pads" on inner layers.

Can be done by removing "non-functional pads" on outer layers.

Some manufacturers do this by default because it saves on drills and apparently makes for a more reliable via.

There may be other reasons for doing this, capacitance or something.

Some layout tools can do this automatically, but if you need the added space for routing I think you need a bit more trickery and design a proper pad-stack.

http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1871852/Content_for_Degreed.com/Previous_Content/Non-Functional-Pads-Should-they-Stay-or-Should-they-Go.pdf?t=1489525465474

https://www.polarinstruments.com/support/reliability/pads-nopads.pdf

[Bert Timmerman (bert-timmerman)]

Padstacks should be editable during layout time.

If the Gerber files are different from what is seen on the screen,
the production file generation is broken.

[Chad Parker (parker-charles)]

I agree this would be a nice feature. In order to implement it, I think we would need to design a padstack system in pcb. Doing so could solve several problems, but is a major undertaking.