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March 2014 • The PCB Design Magazine 15 into the current process and not disrupt the en- gineering process. To facilitate this plug and play, engineering teams relied on user-developed custom applica- tions. These applications served as the glue or patch cords between core EDA tools and niche third-party tools to create a manageable work flow. The pain of this methodology became ob- vious whenever an EDA tool provider required users to migrate away from their tried and true legacy tools to newer, more efficient tools. Typi- cally, userware applications are written in a ver- sion specific scripting language. Legacy user- ware was incompatible and required herculean effort by specialized development resources from a small talent pool to achieve compatibil- ity with the new tool. These resources were vital to maintaining a smooth engineering process, but they are not without their impact on new product intro- duction costs. The cost of implementing and maintaining integration of disparate tools was the impetus for industry standard file format specifications for data transfer, such as IPC- 2581 and ODB++. Having a neutral file format endorsed and supported by all members of the EDA ecosystem facilitated data transfer among disparate tools. EDA tools like schematic capture, digital and analog simulation, PCB design and layout, feature MITIGATING THE HIGH COST OF PCB DOCuMENTATION continues Figure 2.