Enhancements to the stackup and assembly data have the supply chain signing on to the electronics data transfer format. Eighteen months ago, Fujitsu Networks Communications CAD engineering manager Gary Carter shipped CAD files for a 12-layer PCB in the IPC-2581A format to a major board fabricator. The fabricator responded, asking for a drawing and profile information. It’s all there, Carter …

By Terry Costlow, IPC online editor The techniques used for moving printed board design data to manufacturing have many shortcomings, but the industry has never settled on a single approach for transferring data. Over the past couple of years, IPC and the IPC-2581 Consortium have teamed up in a concerted effort to change that. With …

Last year the PCB West conference held a lively panel discussion about data transfer formats for PCB design and manufacturing. Most panelists and many audience members were enthusiastic about IPC-2581, a vendor-neutral, “intelligent” format that can potentially replace many of the various formats in use today. At this year’s PCB West September 26, 2012, two representatives of the IPC-2581 Consortium updated …

A lively panel discussion Sept. 29 revealed that PCB designers have some strong opinions about the data formats that convey design intent to manufacturing. Several audience members expressed support for the Gerber data format that has been around for over 30 years. But other audience members and panelists agreed that a more intelligent and up-to-date …

We left off last month ostensibly discussing standards and how they come to be. The first standard I worked on was IPC-D-350, one of the first of the would-be slayers of Gerber, the so-called unintelligent data format. Indeed, I’ve spent a good part of my life watching electronic data transfer formats come and go, and …