ODB++ Format for PCB Designs

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ODB++ Format for DesignsDesign for Manufacturing

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ODB++ Format for Designs

• How your PCB design data are formatted determines how easily--and perhaps how successfully--a manufacturer can interpret exactly what you intend to have built.

• Whether you send Gerbers to your manufacturer

(along with a drill file, netlist, BOM, board drawing and readme text); a zipped ODB++ file; or a file in the IPC-2581 format when it’s finalized, what’s the difference?

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• The vast majority of PCB design descriptions are Gerber-based, even though more than 15 years ago Valor introduced the ODB++ format for intelligently describing designs at the manufacturing level.

• Sierra Circuits would rather process designs in the ODB++ format, which our CAM tools can analyze in a fraction of the time required to convert and review Gerbers and their accompanying files. But of course, like other manufacturers, we are happy to accommodate our customers’ preferences.


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• Whereas Gerbers convey merely the outlines and locations of features layer by layer, ODB++ data identify the features and enable their sizes, shapes, and positions to be adjusted locally or globally to simplify manufacture and ensure good boards.

• Manufacturers do make slight adjustments in

coordination with customers to preserve the integrity of designs. When our Valor system reveals something in a design that would compromise manufacture--such as traces that are too close together or holes that are too big for pads--and it could be resolved with a minor edit, the system automatically checks the edit against the netlist to confirm that change has no effect elsewhere.


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• Each zipped ODB++ file, if complete, consolidates all the information needed for a board to be manufactured and assembled, and it can be directly loaded into the front-end CAM system, which will in turn output the programs to drive all the process equipment

• In contrast, when we receive a design described by

Gerbers and the accompanying files, we convert these files so they can be loaded into our system for review. That takes time.


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• Like ODB++, the evolving IPC-2581 standard is an intelligent format for delivering all the data needed to automate PCB manufacturing, assembly and testing, in one unified file. Unlike ODB++, which is proprietary to Mentor Graphics, IPC-2581 will be open to implementation by anyone, with no license required.

• ODB++ has been so widely imported by CAD and CAM

vendors that it has become a virtual standard. Why Mentor Graphics might be reluctant to cheerlead the IPC effort is simple to comprehend: From their perspective, why is there a need for another standard, which would require conversion to ODB++ and therefore invite errors?


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• Sierra Circuits actively supports the IPC effort, while recommending the use of ODB++ by our customers because it saves all of us time and uncertainty. IPC introduced the open 2581 standard many years ago, and there has been little clamor among customers to deliver designs in that format. However, that open standard very likely will eventually prevail.


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Visit Us

» Amit Bahl

Director of Sales and Marketing

Sierra Circuits, Inc.

1108 West Evelyn Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94086

Phone: 408-735-7137 Fax: 408-735-1408

Toll free: 800-763-7503

Office Hours: 8 AM to 5 PM Pacific Time, Monday – Friday

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR

PCB MANUFACTURING & ASSEMBLY CAPABILITIES, VISIT

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ODB++ Format for PCB Designs

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