Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1441485
82 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2022 Without a seam. at's what seamless means. ere is no evidence of the transition from one material to another, or in the case of processes, from one process to another. e transition happens smoothly, effortlessly. at is the goal of everyone in the PCB eco- system—designers, fabricators, and contract manufacturers alike. Every designer wishes they could send a data package out to their sup- pliers and never have to worry about whether it will be built correctly or be bothered with answering technical queries. Likewise, bare board fabricators and contract manufacturers wish all their customers would send them com- plete, clean, unambiguous, non-contradicting data so they can get on with their value-added work without asking for missing information or seeking clarification. Technical queries are seams. ey are evi- dence the transition from design to manufac- turing is less than perfect. ere are two rea- sons for technical queries: • Instructions are incomplete, ambiguous, or conflicting •Aspects of the design make it difficult or costly to build Communication Breakdown Contributing to the first cause for technical queries, most OEMs still send an "unintelli- gent" manufacturing package to their sup- pliers. It may be surprising that Gerber 274X is still used by roughly 70% of the industry, according to a survey published by Design007 Magazine in October. Yet, Gerber 274 files do not contain all the information necessary to even fabricate a PCB, much less assemble one. at is why there is simply no such thing as sending only Gerber 274 files. In order to provide a fabricator and Seamless Hand-off From Design to Manufacturing Digital Transformation by Patrick McGoff, SIEMENS EDA