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February 2014 • The PCB Magazine 41 has been around for several years, the designers and the fabricators have not taken advantage of integrating the potential intelligence, such as incorporating the many attributes available which can drive automation and reductions of operator manual interaction. The ODB++ with these intelligent attributes included can help reduce up to 25% (1–2 hours) of our pre-CAM environment, depending on the complexity of the design. It is a single file with intelligent at- tributes, and an all inclusive data package." Table 1 is a list of significant ODB++ ben- efits over Gerber across the entire fabrication process. Advantages for the PCB Customer The advantages of ODB++ data are not limit- ed to the fabrication company. The customer or designer can realize significant benefits as well. These benefits can save significant cost and de- sign time, and even result in getting the product to market more quickly. More importantly, the new product introduction (NPI) quality risk to the PCB customer is substantially reduced. The higher-quality data supplied to the fabricator accounts for that risk reduction, and it propa- gates into board assembly as well. Table 2 lists the more significant advantages of using ODB++ from the perspective of the PCB designer. In addition to the usual set of information that is conveyed in ODB++, many attributes can be communicated as well, and automati- cally. Attributes such as impedance, plugged vias, surface finish, and others can be included in the ODB++ data, automatically read and un- derstood by the fabricator. Users can also assign user-defined attributes of characteristics to eas- ily communicate this information both inter- nally and to suppliers that have been chosen to receive the definition of the attribute. IP Protection While a great deal of product design in- formation is contained in the ODB++ file sent to the fabricator, there is no risk of disclosing the design IP of the product. ODB++ can carry net names, inner layer information, and com- ponent data up to the level that the user feels appropriate for transmission into manufactur- ing, according to how the CAD or DFM tool is configured to create and manage the data. The intention of ODB++ is to give all necessary in- formation to manufacturing, in an intelligent and integrated data-structure, no more and no less, enabling the most efficient manufacturing. Lean NPI for Optimum Efficiency The accepted best-practice for the NPI flow is, as with other aspects of manufacturing, to be Lean. Lean NPI means elimination of waste in the NPI process by ensuring a right-first-time SMART DATA TRANSFER FORMATS AUTOMATE CAD/CAM continues table 2. ODB++ Benefits for the PCB Designer 1. reduced overall risk of errors in fabrication and assembly 2. intelligent data means more on-time deliveries of fabricated and assembled Pcbs 3. less time spent correcting errors and resending data sets because of missing files 4. reduction in the chance of wrong data passing into manufacturing and creating rejects, lost time and money 5. less chance of incorrect file definitions (stackups and polarity errors) 6. elimination of the fairly common Gerber problem of drill pattern misalignment 7. Quicker feedback from fabrication and assembly engineers and quicker resolution of errors