Gerber 274, Extended Gerber 274X and DPF are our standard data formats. All production data can be
sent in these formats. Additional formats can be used for several purposes:
Standard
Drill and route data
Drawings
Specifications
Gerber 274 (X)
DPF ODB++
Excellon 1+2 Sieb&Meier 1000/3000
HPGL/HPGL 2 DXF
ASCII PDF
Gerber 274
The standard format for data exchange between pcb design and production software.
An aperture (wheel) table is needed.
Please note:
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Use one aperture table for all layers.
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Filling (ground) planes should be done with an aperture, which is equal or bigger
than the smallest track width.
-
Each pad size and track width should have its own aperture.
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Pad shapes should be one of the following: circles,
squares, octagons, oblongs, rectangles, thermals.
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Use circles (symmetrical apertures) for drawing.
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Squares can be used for lines parallel to the x and y axes.
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Avoid drawing with octagons.
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All layers should be registered, also drill and rout layers.
Extended Gerber 274X
A powerfull extention of the Gerber format. Advantage: import errors are decreased
as a result of the intergrated aperture table. It has a lot of possibilities, the notes
for standard gerber, however, should also be applied here.
DPF format
Similar to extended gerber, DPF contains the aperture table. It is the native ucam format,
which is our pcb-production software. The ASCII code is responsible for good readability
increasing overview and security. The gerber notes should also be applied.
ODB++ format
Similar to DPF, but nominal more powerful. We use an import filter to
convert the data set to DPF, so we get just the films, drilling and milling data.
Additional information, such as layer buildups, must be shown in a usual way with
separate documents like specifications or drawings.
The gerber notes should also be applied.
Drill and rout data
All mentioned formats can be used, but additionaly also the Excellon or Sieb&Meyer 3000 format.
These formats need a tool table.
Drawings
Nowadays all data is generated digitally. This makes drawings often unnecessary.
In the few cases a drawing is needed, it should be part of the production data zip file.
Sending the drawing by mail is a bad idea, as it will take too long. In this case a
facsimily will suffice.
