A Working Power Component Footprint

A couple of days ago, I wrote about a TO-263 footprint that caused the part to slide up almost off of the legs. Here are two examples of a footprints (or should it be "feetprint"?) that will work just fine.

The first picture has a nice big pad that will cover the component thermal pad and keep it centered in all of the right places. The big land might even be a little over-kill but it will work.

The second picture shows another good pad after assembly. The difference between this and the one in the prior post is subtle, but the pad on the board matches the pad on the part closely so that the part ends up in just the right spot.

And, on a side note - in that older post, I complained about the LM1086 pinout. This part, the LT1963 is a good low-dropout regulator and, in it's three-pin configuration, does in fact match the pin-out of the old 78XX. So there!

Duane Benson
in-ground-out forever!