Closed: Minimum Solder Mask Sliver

[selkathguy]

EDIT:

Nevermind, I think I've found another thread that answers my question.  I'll just have to go with dry film solder mask, from what I hear.  If this is incorrect, please PM me.  For now I will close the thread.

I'm trying to route pins of a TQFP-48 package, but I'm running into default design rule violations for "Minimum Solder Mask Sliver".  I don't want to shrink the solder mask too much, but I also still want to keep solder mask between the pins if at all possible (I'm thinking of using paste and hot air to reflow the chip, and I really don't want shorts).  The pin pitch is about 0.5mm, and the software complains that the sliver is only ~3.2 mil wide.  I've googled and searched on the forums here and haven't really gotten a good answer that I was looking for.  Some say that it wont be a problem, some say that you should just leave the solder mask off for each row of pins (because the mask can flake off or something during soldering and cause problems).  Does anyone have any advice or pointers on what I should do or what the real minimums are?  What capabilities do PCB manufacturers (e.g. PCBCart) typically have in terms of these tolerances?   Can't find information on websites about it.  Thanks in advance!

[selkathguy]

For a 0.5mm pitch like this, should I leave the solder mask off in 4 swaths around each side of pins?  Or should I keep the slivers even though they're <10 mil wide?  I'm not familiar with how well such thin pieces of solder mask can be manufactured.

[selkathguy]

Nevermind, I think I've found another thread that answers my question.  I'll just have to go with dry film solder mask, from what I hear.  If this is incorrect, please PM me.  For now I will close the thread.