For this strategy to work, care must be taken during routing to connect the correct pins between each device. Many devices have the same pinout across packages, but some do not, especially between leaded and non-leaded versions. The secondary footprint can still be used if they do not match but extra attention must be used to guarantee compatibility. In the example footprint section, both matching pinouts between packages and mis-matched pinouts between packages are shown.

Sufficient spacing is required between the pads of the primary footprint and the pads of the secondary footprint to guarantee adequate solder mask fill and electrical performance. According to the industry standard IPC-2221, a minimum of 4 mills is the recommended spacing up to 30 V and a minimum of 24 mills is recommended for voltages 31 V and above. Designers should also consider that the secondary footprint may add a small amount of trace length. This will also cause passive components such as decoupling capacitors to be further away from the device when the secondary footprint is utilized.