Extended use of 'Flipped On Layer' Property
Altium Designer 14 saw the arrival of support for embedded discrete components. Embedding discrete components directly under an integrated circuit can result in: shorter signal lengths; reduced resistance and parasitic inductance, leading to lower noise and EMI; and improved integrity of the circuit signals. These improvements deliver smaller and more reliable products, supporting faster signal speeds and higher bandwidths. Combined with the on-going improvements being achieved in fabrication processes and technologies, they can also lead to a reduction in the product size, and lower fabrication and board level assembly costs.
When embedding a discrete component within an internal copper layer of a circuit board, the direction that the embedded component orients (up or down) is defined by the Orientation specified for that copper layer in the Layer Stack Manager dialog. If needed this can be overridden at the individual component level, by enabling the Flipped on Layer option in the Component properties dialog. Until now, this has been the only place to access this property, which is not so bad for a handful of embedded components, but soon becomes a laborious task as that number increases.
Extended Support - Inspector, List & FSO
In Altium Designer 14.3, access to this property has been extended. You can now find the Flipped On Layer property through the PCB Inspector panel, PCB List panel, and Find Similar Objects dialog.
Query Language Support
Extending use of the Flipped On Layer property to the Query Language, the Boolean ComponentFlippedOnLayer keyword has been added for use in logical filter queries.
This keyword returns all components whose Flipped On Layer property complies with the Query. Examples are:
- IsComponent And ComponentFlippedOnLayer
Returns all components that have a True Flipped On Layer property.
- IsComponent And ComponentFlippedOnLayer = True
Returns all components that have a True Flipped On Layer property.
- IsComponent And Not ComponentFlippedOnLayer
Returns all components except components that have a True Flipped On Layer property.
- IsComponent And ComponentFlippedOnLayer = False
Returns all components except components that have a True Flipped On Layer property.
Scripting Support
Extending use of the Flipped On Layer property to the scripting domain, the Boolean FlippedOnLayer property has been added to the Component interface (IPCB_Component.FlippedOnLayer).