-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueLevel Up Your Design Skills
This month, our contributors discuss the PCB design classes available at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. As they explain, these courses cover everything from the basics of design through avoiding over-constraining high-speed boards, and so much more!
Opportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Letter to the Editor: Gerber's "Dumb" Data is no Advantage
May 2, 2012 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Dear Mr. Shaughnessy,
I was glad to read your article about data transfer formats as part of the "Shaughnessy Report: Designers' Roundtable Wrapup” last week. Thanks for raising the topic before the forum!
The idea that everybody uses Gerber because it has the "advantage" of being "dumb" really does not stand up to scrutiny (IMHO). Before going further I should declare that I am an ex-Valor guy (now with Mentor), who has always been a strong advocate of ODB++.
Do PCB designers realise the true cost of all this dumb data (i.e., Gerber/Excellon/etc.)? The cost of the additional data manipulation that the manufacturers have to do so as to be ready to actually create the tooling is baked into the price paid for the PCB (by the designer's employer).
The quality risk involved in rebuilding the PCB product-model from all the Gerber/Excellon/netlist/drawings is also baked into the price (sometimes in a rather volatile and unwelcome way, shall we say).
And lastly – time. We hear over and over again that, by the time the PCB layout guy starts his work he actually has a negative amount of time in which to design the board as compared to the overall project plan, so why waste time with lengthy output processing into multiple file types, followed by asking the manufacturer to reintegrate all that disparate data back into a single product model at the manufacturing level? What a waste of time, when actually you need to save time!
Lastly, back to the question of IP protection and the advantage of being "dumb." It is a complete fallacy that just because data is all contained in one file (such as ODB++) it contains more IP than if the exact same data content is distributed amongst multiple separate files, such as Gerber, Excellon, drawings, netlists etc. Many manufacturers reintegrate all that dumb data back into ODB++ anyway in their CAM systems, so what is being achieved with this dumb data in terms of IP protection? Nothing at all!
Instead, a lot of resources are wasted, and the risk of a mistake is greater. The designer has control of the generation of his data, whether ODB++ or anything else – he can control what content is contained there – he just has to make sure that he gives the manufacturer what he needs to do an accurate and complete job. No more, no less!
We recently made a survey of thousands of PCB designers, asking them about their manufacturing data handoff procedures and preferences. A summary can be seen here. The overarching conclusion is that the majority of PCB designers still do not really know what ODB++ is about and that is the real reason why good old (dumb) Gerber still lives. There is still a hill to climb in terms or awareness and support for adoption of the better alternative.
But of the people who do have knowledge of ODB++ the vote in favour of it is overwhelming because of the time/cost/quality advantages, with no actual IP protection problem at all. All are welcome to join the ODB++ Solutions Alliance at www.odb-sa.com and to ask for help in adopting ODB++ to save time, reduce cost, secure quality, without any increase in IP exposure!
Yours sincerely,
Julian Coates ODB++ Solutions Alliance ManagerMentor Graphics