Electronic – Using unused pins on an MCU to ease routing

microcontrollerpcb

I'm using a LQFP-64 MCU on a 2 layer board (ground plane plus power/signal plane), and I'm trying very hard to avoid running traces on the ground plane. Some of them can be routed out the corners of the MCU. I do have a couple problematic traces, and my solution is route the traces back under the MCU and out other pins. I'll configure the "secondary" pins as digital inputs to avoid double driving the signal.

  1. Is this a bad idea? I guess there's extra parasitic capacitance. FWIW the signals are <=1MHz, probably <=125kHz. I need to check that the bootloader and reset states don't drive the pins, but otherwise it seems just fine?

  2. Will EMC be a problem? I have an unbroken ground plane on the far side from the MCU, but there won't be a solid power plane directly under the MCU. The MCU itself will probably run around 12MHz, maybe 24-48MHz.

Best Answer

I've done this before, and it does require some precautions that you set those pins to inputs on the MCU. Other than that, most MCU pins can withstand short circuit for a short while.. so I think it is survivable if you set them up incorrectly during development.

Alternatively what you could do, is add soldermask to the pads that you use for snaking traces like this. That way the QFP pin doesn't get soldered to the board.

However, not sure how well this trick will hold up if you plan on mass producing the board.