Adding Texas Instruments INA260 to a PCB: layout and gate checks

The Texas Instruments INA260 is a current, voltage and power monitor with integrated shunt from Texas Instruments. Its package or board interface is 16-pin 4 × 4 mm QFN with high-current pins, and its relevant electrical envelope is 2.7–5.5 V supply; 0–36 V bus common-mode. It communicates or connects through I²C with 16 addresses and ALERT. Those fields belong together: substituting a familiar family name while changing package, voltage, sensing port, mount style, current class, or interface behavior can leave a PCB that passes ordinary net checks and still cannot be assembled or function safely.

INA260 integrates a precision 2 mΩ shunt, avoiding external Kelvin layout but forcing load current through dedicated package pins.

Common uses include calibrated power monitors and USB-C and battery rail telemetry. Start with the manufacturer drawing and recommended application, then record the exact ordering suffix alongside the KiCad symbol and footprint. This makes the library evidence reviewable when the part is re-sourced months later.

• Use a Kelvin-aware footprint where current enters and leaves the shunt separately from its sense connections. Package power pads and high-current leads need copper sized for current and heat, not only the nominal land pattern.
• Keep the high-current path compact and symmetric. Put the measurement IC near the shunt while preserving creepage, clearance, and thermal separation from heat-generating loads.

Route current into and out of the high-current pins with broad balanced copper, preserve the small-signal ground and supply decoupling, and calculate package/copper heating.

• Select shunt value from full-scale current, allowed burden voltage, power dissipation, and measurement resolution. Route sense traces as a matched pair from the shunt terminals and keep them out of switching-current loops.
• Check common-mode range independently from supply voltage, protect inputs against transients, and set I²C address or analog filtering exactly as the datasheet specifies.

Put the support components where their current, thermal, optical, RF, or measurement loops are actually short—not merely where ratsnest lines look tidy. Confirm pin one from the package view used in the datasheet, distinguish top view from mating face or bottom view, and check mask, paste, drill, courtyard, enclosure, and rework access independently. A correct copper pad pattern can still be a bad production footprint when the sensing opening, connector latch, exposed pad, thermal path, or cable volume is wrong.

MakeIRL’s release gate should not stop at “the symbol has the right number of pins.” For this part, a useful gate review combines ERC/DRC with the following package- and function-specific evidence:

1. Check shunt resistance, tolerance, power rating, Kelvin connections, copper current capacity, common-mode voltage, supply, decoupling, and address straps.
2. Check polarity and sense-net continuity and ensure load current cannot bypass the measured shunt through ground, shields, mounting hardware, or another power path.
3. Check thermal rise, input protection, high-voltage spacing where applicable, and package/grade suffix against the real operating range.
4. For Texas Instruments INA260, check QFN/current-pin footprint, current direction, 15 A measurement limit under conditions, copper temperature, address straps, ALERT, and 36 V common-mode.

Then run ERC and DRC, refill zones, and inspect the fabrication and assembly outputs. Cross-probe the exact pads named by any finding, compare the BOM MPN with the footprint and electrical limits above, and verify that a real cable, enclosure, antenna, sensor stimulus, load, or thermal path can be tested on the assembled unit. An exclusion is evidence that someone dismissed a marker; it is not evidence that the underlying condition was resolved.

The most expensive errors are usually plausible: a footprint from a sibling package, a breakout-board voltage copied to the bare IC, a headline current used without thermal analysis, or a connector family selected by pitch alone. For Texas Instruments INA260, review these failure modes explicitly:

• Necking the high-current path to ordinary QFN trace widths creates heating and voltage drop before the integrated shunt reaches its electrical limit.
• Taking sense traces from the power copper instead of the shunt terminals, so trace resistance and load current corrupt the reading.
• Confusing the IC's bus voltage limit with its supply voltage or exceeding common-mode range during hot plug and fault events.

Sourcing note. Source INA260 by exact grade/package; do not substitute INA219/226 because their external-shunt architecture requires a different PCB. The approved vendor list should preserve manufacturer, full suffix, package, voltage/range/accuracy grade, lifecycle, and mating or external components. An alternate is real only after its datasheet, land pattern, electrical behavior, firmware assumptions, and assembly process have all been compared—not because a distributor search places it in the same parametric row.