Silkscreen Specification

About our Silkscreen.

We use Peters SD2692 ink for the silkscreen on our beautiful boards and apply them using the direct printing method.

Do’s and DON’Ts

Do not place silkscreen over pads, we will remove the silkscreen from that area.

silkscreen-over-pad

The minumum distance between a pad and silkscreen is 0.127mm.

pad-silkscreen-clearance

The minimum width is 0.15mm and we recommend a minimum height of 0.8mm for text.
All silkscreen features with a width of less than 0.15mm will be adjusted to 0.15mm.

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Hello!
I would like to ask some questions about your silkscreen:

  1. What does it mean that you will adjust lines that are smaller than 0.15mm? For example, I am using Stroke font with 0.1mm line width. Will you increase it to 0.15, or will it be not printed?
  2. What happens if letters are smaller than 0.8mm? In some higher density boards I use 0.6mm high Stroke font letters to squeeze them between components. Will you print them, or erase them? Is it only a recommendation, or some action will be taken?
    Personally I have been using 0.6mm high and 0.1mm line width Stroke font letters for my component designators with Aisler for several couple years, and the results have been great. Of course, the letters are small and paint flows a bit, but I don’t care, I just need to distinguish between C5 and R12 for example :slight_smile: When space is really small, I have used even something like 0.4mm height and 0.1mm width, and designators were still recognizable for my purposes. So can I keep using 0.6mm / 0.1mm fonts at my own risk?

BR,
Andris Igaunis

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We will increase the 0.1mm line width to 0.15mm.
The 0.8mm is a recommendation.

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OK, all is clear now. Thanks!
Also, I would like to praise you for good silkscreen because what I like about it is that it is very precise in x-y location. If I draw a rectangle around a component, then the lines are very precise relative to pads. So I can place components that have pads under package (BGAs, QFNs) reliably just looking at silkscreen. So thank you for quality!
Andris

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Thank you for these kind words! Appreciate it. It is indeed surprisingly complicated to properly mount the production panel on the ink printer in the exact same position as during photo plotting. But looks like we’ve a stable process in place :slight_smile:

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