Gameduino 3X Dazzler

After quite a lot of checking, rework and squeezing, last week the prototype Gameduino 3X HDMI board went out for fabrication. It's a four-layer PCB measuring a quite compact 50 x 42 mm. The product name is Gameduino 3X Dazzler, to head off any problems with the HDMI name.  There are 31 IOs, all brought out to castellated 2mm headers at the board edge. The PCB and HDMI signals are impedance matched, and follow best practices for signal integrity. All of these refinements are thanks to the many newsletter readers who have sent feedback and advice.

There's also an HD animation of it here: https://excamera.com/files/dazzler-spin.mp4

This board is my first experiment in not using CAD tools. (To be specific, the tools I'm not using are KiCad and  Eagle.) A single Python program runs, and in a couple of seconds lays out the board, runs a DRC, and writes multiple outputs. These include the Gerber files, of course


but it also outputs

• a POV-Ray model of the board (that's what's shown in the rendering and animation) 
• a BOM
• a pick-and-place file for the manufacturer
• a netlist report
• the Xilinx ".ucf" file, which connects signal names to FPGA pins

So a lot of manual steps are now fully automated.

I'm pretty pleased so far with this new CAD-less workflow, but of course the board hasn't come back yet. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as British people used to say. Eating will commence next week, if DHL is willing.

Thanks for reading.