Courtyard

A courtyard is a frame around a board part that claims floor space for the body, so the next part does not sit in its lap.

The outer frame is larger than the body and the pads. It claims the floor the part needs.

Silkscreen is optional ink, and the plastic body is not. A courtyard is a CAD outline, often a little larger than the package, used for collision checks inside a footprint. Two courtyards that overlap mean two parts fight, even if the pads do not. It shows up as a dashed rectangle, maybe 3.2 by 1.8 millimeters around an 0805, larger than the two pads. Assembly houses also publish courtyard rules. A keepout is a stronger “nothing here” that may ban copper, not only parts. Clearance is a distance number. A courtyard is a specific kind of claimed area for placement.

Shrinking courtyards to cram a board can hide the air a pick-and-place nozzle or a mating connector needed. Ask assembly, not only the DRC of pads. Some tools auto-build a courtyard from the silk and pads. Others expect you to draw it. Measure a real package: a 5 by 5 millimeter QFN with a 0.25 millimeter courtyard margin is not the same as the tiny land pattern. Pick-and-place collisions show up as overlapping courtyards in a 3-D preview, or as a report courtyard_overlap: U3 vs U4. Leave room for the nozzle and for fingers at connectors.

How a footprint carries that frame, where it sits on a board, and why the outline is a rule are covered in footprints are almost cells, a PCB stackup, and design rules and DRC.