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88 PCB007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2021 Feature Article by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 Ucamco recently announced that its Gerber Job Editor can now accept notes in Mandarin. is is a big step for Ucamco, the company that owns Gerber, which is the data transfer format used by most PCB designers. Other more "in- telligent" data formats are making inroads in this area, but Gerber shows no signs of fading any time soon. I asked Karel Tavernier, manag- ing director of Ucamco, to discuss the move to add Mandarin notes to the Gerber Job Editor, and what this means for CAM department us- ers who may speak little or no English. Andy Shaughnessy: Karel, Ucamco recently added Mandarin capability to the Gerber Jobs Editor. Would you walk us through this? Karel Tavernier: Sure, but let's take a step back. e Gerber Job Editor edits Gerber Job Files. at's a file that was first introduced two or three years ago, and it contains data about the job in a formalized, standardized man- ner. e data includes copper weights, solder mask, whether the job is ITAR, etc. ese are all kinds of things that relate to the job over- all, and not necessarily specifically to a layer. at's something that Gerber will offer to the workflow, and there's no standard manner of transferring it. We put this in a separate sample JSON file. Why a separate file? Because plen- ty of CAD systems don't carry this data. Why should they? So, the ERP system contains this data. And asking the ERP programmer to un- derstand PCB image data for simply defining a finish is not very realistic. A simple separate file is the way to go. Shaughnessy: It's two different languages. Tavernier: Yes. So why a JSON file? Because it's simple and human-readable. A few CAD systems have implemented it; Eagle is one of them; KiCad and a couple of others have im- plemented it too. We also know of ERP sys- tems that generate the Gerber Job File. We created the Gerber Job Editor, a standalone application to view, create, and edit Job files. Ucamco Improves Communication With Gerber Job Editor Notes in Mandarin