Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1417991
14 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2021 a very positive thing. Around 2010, Ucamco again took up evolving the Gerber format. In a first phase, we simplified it by throw- ing out everything that was very rarely or never used. Simplify before you extend. In a second phase, we added information that Gerber lacked as a CAD-to-CAM data trans- fer format. It was already a perfect image for- mat but lacked design intent information; it did not contain the information about which drilled holes were vias or component holes, for example. Gerber X2 was brought out in 2014. Gerber X2 added extra information to the Ger- ber file so that from within the Gerber file you can see whether it's positive or negative, if it's a copper layer or a solder mask, which pads are component pads, and what's top or bottom, etc. is has been very widely adopted, and most Gerber files today are X2 files. e reason for its quick adoption, again, is simplicity. e difficult part of output is the image; getting that right is difficult. For a CAD-vendor that already has an Extended Gerber output (and that is all of them), gen- erating the extra X2 information is straightfor- ward. If Gerber soware outputs a top copper layer in Gerber, for example, chances are that soware knows it's outputting the top copper layer; adding a line saying, "I am the top cop- per layer" is not rocket science. Gerber X2 is compatible on input. e sim- plest is to ignore the X2 lines; then you have gained nothing, but it continues to work as before. Plenty of people receive Gerber X2 files without having updated soware, and they do not even know it's an X2 file. ey don't derive the benefit, but they have no disadvantage. We had discussions with the group for IPC- 2581 around that period. I had just read an article in Design007 Magazine about how IPC- 2581 DPMX is great. However, it is difficult to adopt because you must implement a new image language, and that's very hard. is new image language brings nothing to the table. But DPMX had things that did not exist in Ger- ber at that time, and which were needed. I pro- posed that DPMX release a version that allows use of Gerber image files, but to add the new stuff in DPMX. Maybe somebody only wants to do stackup, describe finisher, etc. You must allow him to just implement that part. Alas, the DPMX core group only wanted to do full implementations, and that's very hard. I think the non-existent acceptance of DPMX is mainly because the DPMX group has made it incredibly hard to adopt DPMX. Many companies that supply soware in the industry are very small. When they must wres- tle through a 1,000-page manual before they can start, they wonder, "When am I going to do that?" And they don't. So, this plan didn't work out. ey chose a road that could not work. at's why we started the X2 project— in despair. I had hoped I wouldn't have to do it and that the whole IPC team would do it, but okay (laughs). Later, there was the introduction of Gerber X3, and that is adding component informa- tion to Gerber files. Again, praise to the ODB people; they did this a long time ago, but in a rather complicated way. e neat thing about the implementation of components in Ger- ber is that it is so simple. It's syntactically and Karel Tavernier