Keepouts

Summary of using Keepouts in Quilter to restrict placement and routing areas, including common uses and how to specify them in your CAD tool.

Overview

Quilter integrates directly with keepouts defined in your CAD tool, so it won't place or route signals in areas you've marked off on your PCB.

That's pretty much it – just add a keepout to your board, and we'll steer clear of it!

Keepouts prevent routing & placement Quilter currently respects keepouts during both placement and routing, but there is not yet a way to apply a keepout for just one or the other.

Why should I use keepouts?

Keepouts can help Quilter define the desired boundaries for design activity. Some common reasons to use keepouts include:

1. Reserving space for mechanical features, such as mounting holes, connectors, and heat sinks, where traces or components shouldn't go.

2. Protecting sensitive areas, like RF zones, from routing that could affect signal integrity.

3. Enforcing design intent, such as keeping parts out of high-heat zones or away from noisy power areas.

How to specify

Uploading a keepout to Quilter for layout candidate generation is easy. Just define it in your CAD tool as you normally would and save it along with your other design files when setting up a new layout job.