BY Aman Chitransh GET ,D&D

AN

INTRODUCTION OF

PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD

What is PCB?


A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board (PWB) or etched wiring board. A PCB populated with electronic components is abbreviated as printed circuit assembly (PCA), also known as a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA).

History of PCB:
The inventor of the printed circuit was the Austrian engineer Paul Eisler who, while working in England, made one circa 1936 as part of a radio set. Around 1943 the USA began to use the technology on a large scale to make proximity fuses for use in World War II. After the war, in 1948, the USA released the invention for commercial use.

Before printed circuits (and for a while

 

after their invention), Point to point construction Was used. The resulting devices were prone to fail from corroded contacts, or mechanical loosening of the Connections and others

For prototypes, or small production runs, wire wrap or turret board was more efficient.


But complexity of circuits, loosening of contcts Again raise a problem

Invention of PCB Came up with a new era open for technical world. Originally, every electronic component had wire leads, and the PCB had holes drilled for each wire of each component. This method of assembly is called through-hole construction. United States Army Signal Corps developed the Auto-Sembly process in which component leads were inserted into a copper foil interconnection pattern and dip soldered. With the development of board lamination and etching techniques, this concept evolved into the standard printed circuit board fabrication process in use today and further automatic soldering process(Wave Soldering).

Motivation:
 Understanding underlying manufacturing

processes is almost always important for an engineer:

Allows the design to exploit capabilities; and Ensures that the design will be manufacturable.

 PCBs have been produced for many years;

advances with technological improvements are notable.

Typical PCB Manufacturing Process:

 In this section, we will look at some of the

equipment and processes that is used in modern PCB production.  Although Step s description vary person to person but we tried to present a most general Process flow.

Each development stage is carried out by a dedicated piece of equipment which may form part of an assembly line.

Depending on your application, note that some stages may be missing here. For instance, a tinning stage is often included after etching to reduce copper layer oxidation. A multi-layer PCB, too, requires a lamination stage to join the layers.

Drilling
Holes through a PCB are typically drilled with small-diameter drill bits made of solid coated tungsten carbide. The drilling is performed by automated drilling machines with placement controlled by a drill tape or drill file. These computer-generated files are also called numerically controlled drill (NCD) files or "Excellon files. The Excellon format is similar to the IPC standard IPC-NC-349 format[2]. The Excellon format is used to rout data between CAD/CAM systems as well as to drive CNC machines. The Excellon format was designed for and is suited for driving a CNC machine. (There as some issues about specifying the coordinate format though.) . The drill file describes the location and size of each drilled hole. These holes are often filled with annular rings (hollow rivets) to create vias. Vias allow the electrical and thermal connection of conductors on opposite sides of the PCB. When very small vias are required, drilling with mechanical bits is costly because of high rates of wear and breakage. In this case, the vias may be evaporated by lasers. Laser-drilled vias typically have an inferior surface finish inside the hole. These holes are called micro vias.

Source: http://www.megauk.com accessed 12 Feb 2008

Plating of Holes
CROSS SECTION OF A PLATED THROUGH HOLE
The PCB assembler works with finished hole size. The fabrication process is based on the drilled hole size. Along with all of this, it is necessary to size holes in such a way that the power planes of the PCB are not degraded by placing holes so close together that they cause slots to be created in the planes by overlapping clearance holes. It is not possible to specify generously large hole sizes and insulation spacing to make manufacturing or fabrication easy without risking degradation of the environment needed by the high speed signals travelling across those planes through the PCB.

CAPTURE PADS

TRACE

PLANECLEARANCE HOLE

HOLE SHADOW

SHADOW HOLE PLATING

Finished hole size Drilled hole size Capture pad Clearance hole Hole shadow Manufacturing tolerance Hole plating Copper foil Annular ring Thermal Ties

IMPORTANT DIMENSIONS
Finished hole diameter- drill size minus copper plating.

Drilled hole diameter- finished hole diameter plus

copper plating

Hole shadow- drilled hole diameter plus manufacturing

tolerance.

Capture pad- hole shadow plus annular ring allowance Clearance pad- hole shadow plus insulation gap.

Film Lamination
A laminator is used to apply the Film .

Always use good quality pre-coated Positive photoresist fiberglass (FR4) board.

By carefully monitoring both pressure magnitude and distribution within your lamination rollers, with pressure indicating films, wrinkling induced defects can be significantly reduced. Over tightened or loose or worn roll chucks can cause roller misalignments and imperfect nips - both of which are the primary contributors to intermittent wrinkling.

UV Exposure
UV units used to expose the photoresist on a PCB.

Standard fluorescent lamp ballasts and UV tubes are used in maschine.

For small PCBs, two or four 8 watt 12" tubes will be adequate, for larger (A3) units, four 15" 15 watt tubes are ideal. A timer which switches off the UV lamps automatically is essential, and should allow exposure times from 2 to 10 minutes in 30 second increments.

 Inner View of UV

Exposure Machine

UV Exposure Process

3 4

Etching
There are many different sorts of etching, developing, and stripping setups. A unit that sprays the chemicals over board panels, mounted inside. Different units (of the same type) are typically used for each stage described, above.

board is submerged in etching solution such as ferric chloride. Splash etching uses a motor-driven paddle to splash boards with etchant. In spray etching, the etchant solution is distributed over the boards by nozzles, and recirculated by pumps. A panel that is inserted into a spray tank As more copper is consumed from the boards, the etchant becomes saturated and less effective

Stripping:
 Board Strippers:
 

Stripper L10: This sulphuric acid based immersion-stripping solution is formulated for the stripping of nickel
and tin from copper and brass without attack on the base materials

Alstrip 98LC: A one-step stripper for tin-lead, based on stabilized nitric acid, it gives a high stripping speed
and high yield There is low attack of the copper surfaces, which are always perfectly bright, even after repeated passes through the stripping machine.

 Film Strippers:


Remover DFA95LC: A stripper for aqueous dry-films suitable for fine-line PCBs manufacturing, eliminating
the dry-film residues even in recessed areas or when over lapping occurs.

 Jig Strippers:


Stripper L30: 1 :-The first version L30/1 is used for the immersion stripping of tin and tin-lead deposits from copper. 2:-The second, L30/2 is used for the stripping of tin, tin-lead and copper deposits from stainless steel jigs and
contacts.

Solder masking:


Solder mask or solder resist is a lacquer-like layer of polymer that provides a permanent protective coating for the copper traces of a printed circuit board (PCB) and prevents solder from bridging between conductors, thereby preventing short circuits. Solder mask was created primarily to facilitate wave soldering used in mass assembly and traditionally it was of green color. The lowest-cost solder mask is epoxy liquid that is silkscreened through the pattern onto the PCB.
process uses LPISM .

 

 Liquid Photoimageable Solder Mask (LPISM): Now a days advance method of PCB fabrication 

There are currently four main categories of photo imageable solder mask application:
curtain of low viscosity (<10 Poise) ink which fall

1.Screen print: Applied to the PCB with a squeegee blade through a tensioned mesh. 2.Curtain coat: LPISM is applied as the PCB passes through a
through a narrow (0.3 1.0 mm) slot ( nip-gap ) in a holding head .

3.Electrostatic spray: LPISM is applied from a serrated turbine bell rotating at 25

50,000 rpm. This rotating bell, aided by compressed air, atomises the ink and deposits it on the PCB. In addition, the LPISM is given a negative charge and the PCB is earthed. Therefore, based on the fundamental principle that unlike charges attract; the LPISM is attracted to the PCB.

4.Air spray: Well established spray gun technology where the ink is mixed with decompressing air resulting in
atomization. In most cases the ink is heated prior to spraying in order to drop the viscosity and compensate for the cooling effect of the expanding air.

Silk Screening:
 

Line art and text may be printed onto the outer surfaces of a PCB by screen printing. space permits, the screen print text can indicate component designators, switch setting requirements, test points, and other features helpful in assembling, testing, and servicing the circuit board. The toner image will transfer to both the base laminate (fiberglass or CEM) and the circuit traces. After this image is transferred in the usual way, the WhiteTRF foil is added over the black toner the same way the GreenTRF was applied to the circuit image. Note that the image is printed in reverse (mirrored) because it will be put on the top of the SMT board. Run it through the TIA laminator device to fuse the white to the toner image.

 

 

Populating and Soldering:



Once a board is created, it is still necessary to stuff the board with components. This can be done by hand, but in massproduction time is an issue. Automation includes few very effective process comprises both readiness and reliability discussed in the next section.

Soldering Methods:

There are two typical ways that a board has components soldered onto it:
1. 2.

The Reflow method where solder is applied to the board in a paste form, the components are added and then soldering is performed in an oven; and The Wave soldering method sees the components added, and then passed over a standing wave of solder to perform the soldering.

 A reflow oven:

 Temperature Profile:

Each of the two methods has advantages and disadvantages:

Some parts cannot handle the thermal shock experienced by

being passed through molten solder; When wave soldering is used, it is necessary to hold components in place: glue! Wave soldering is FAST! Reflow soldering does not really work with through-hole parts.

Regardless of the method used, particular temperature profiles must be adhered to.

Pick and Place Units:

 To place components on a PCB, a Pick and

Place unit can be used.

 Again, component placement information

originates from the CAD package.

 An interesting home-brewed solution that shows

many of the necessary steps in this process is at:

Homebrew Surface Mount Pick and Place Taig Mill Conversion

PART- 2 DESIGNING OF CIRCUIT

Introduction:


Now it's time to turn it into a nice Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design. For some designers, the PCB design will be a natural and easy extension of the design process. But for many others the process of designing and laying out a PCB can be a very daunting task. This Presentation is presented to hopefully take some of the mystery out of PCB design. It gives some advice and rules of thumb on how to design and lay out your PCBs in a professional manner. There are many basic rules and good practices to follow, but apart from that PCB design is a highly creative and individual process. It is like trying to teach someone how to paint a picture.

Indeed, many PCB designers like to think of PCB layouts as works of art, to be admired for their beauty and elegance. If it looks good, it ll work good. is an old catch phrase.

PCB Packages:


There are many PCB design packages available on the market, a few of which are freeware, shareware, or limited component full versions. Professionals use the expensive high end Windows based packages such as 99SE and DXP. Hobbyists use the excellent freeware DOS based Protel AutoTrax program, which was, once upon a time, the high-end package of choice in Australia. There is however, one distinct exception. Using a PCB only package, which does not have schematic capability, greatly limits what you can do with the package in the professional sense. Generally good PCB packages are provided with some hot keys for direct unit conversion.

 

 

The Old Days:



Back in the pre-computer CAD days, PCBs were designed and laid out by hand using adhesive tapes and pads on clear drafting film.

Many hours were spent slouched over a fluorescent light box, cutting, placing, ripping up,

and routing tracks by hand.

Those days are well and truly gone, with computer based PCB design having replaced this

method completely in both hobbyist and professional electronics. What used to take hours can now be done in seconds.

Standards:


There are industry standards for almost every aspect of PCB design. These standards are controlled by the former Institute for Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits, who are now known simply as the IPC.
The major document that covers PCB design is IPC-2221, Generic Standard on Printed Board Design . This standard superseded the old IPC-D-275 standard (also Military Std 275) which has been used for the last half century.

Local countries also have their own various standards for many aspects of PCB design and manufacture, but by and large the IPC standards are the accepted industry standard around the world.

Even today work on generalization of one standard world wide is going on. Hope fully soon it will be a one standard further.

The Schematic:


Before you even begin to lay out your PCB, you MUST have a complete and accurate schematic diagram. Many people jump straight into the PCB design with nothing more than the circuit in their head, or the schematic drawn on loose post-it notes with no pin numbers and no order. This just isn t good enough, if you don t have an accurate schematic then your PCB will most likely end up a mess, and take you twice as long as it should. Garbage-in, garbage-out is an often used quote, and it can apply equally well to PCB design. A PCB design is a manufactured version of your schematic. Good practice will have signals flowing from inputs at the left to outputs on the right. Electrically important sections should drawn correctly, the way the designer would like them to be laid out on the PCB. Like putting bypass capacitors next to the component they are meant for. Little notes on the schematic that aid in the layout are very useful. Notes not only remind yourself when it comes to laying out the board, but they are useful for people reviewing the design.

   

Working to Grids:


The second major rule of PCB design, and the one most often missed by beginners, is to lay out your board on a fixed grid. This is called a snap grid , as your cursor, components and tracks will snap into fixed grid positions. 100 thou is a standard placement grid for very basic through hole work, with 50 thou being a standard for general tracking work, like running tracks between through hole pads. Why coarse snap grid so important? It s important because it will keep your components neat and symmetrical; aesthetically pleasing if you may. It s not just for aesthetics though - it makes future editing, dragging, movement and alignment of your tracks, components and blocks of components easier as your layout grows in size and complexity. Good PCB layout practice would involve you starting out with a coarse grid like 50 thou and using a progressively finer snap grid .If your design becomes tight on space drop to 25 thou and 10 thou for finer routing and placement when needed. A good PCB package will have hotkeys or programmable macro keys to help us switch between different snap grid sizes instantly, as we will need to do this often. There are two types of grids in a PCB drafting package, a snap grid as discussed, and a visible grid. The visible grid is an optional on-screen grid of solid or dashed lines, or dots. This is displayed as a background behind your design and helps you greatly in lining up components and tracks.

 

Some programs also have what is called an Electrical grid. This grid is not visible, but it makes your cursor snap onto the center of electrical objects like tracks and pads, when your cursor gets close enough. One last type of grid is the Component grid. This works the same as the snap grid, but it s for component movement only. This allows you to align components up to a different grid.

Tracks:
 

There is no recommended standard for track sizes. Every design will have a different set of electrical requirements which can vary between tracks on the board. All but basic noncritical designs will require a mixture of track sizes. The lower limit of your track width will depend upon the track/space resolution that your PCB manufacturer is capable of. For example, a manufacturer may quote a 10/8 track/space figure. This means that tracks can be no less than 10 thou wide, and the spacing between tracks (or pads, or any part of the copper) can be no less than 8 thou. The IPC standard recommends 4thou as being a lower limit. As a guide, with home made PCB manufacturing processes like laser printed transparencies and pre-coated photo resist boards, it is possible to easily get 10/10 and even 8/8 spacing. Changing your track from large to small and then back to large again is known as necking , or necking down . This is often required when you have to go between IC or component pads. This allows you to have nice big low impedance tracks, but still have the flexibility to route between tight spots.

 

 

In practice, your track width will be dictated by the current flowing through it, and the maximum temperature rise of the track you are willing to tolerate. Remember that every track will have a certain amount of resistance, so the track will dissipate heat just like a resistor. The thickness of the copper on the PCB is nominally specified in ounces per square foot, with 1oz copper being the most common. The thicker copper layers are useful for high current, high reliability designs. As a rule of thumb, a 10degC temperature rise in your track is a nice safe limit to design around.

Pads:
Pad sizes, shapes and dimensions will depend not only upon the component you are using, but also the manufacturing process used to assemble the board, among other things. There is an important parameter known as the pad/hole ratio. This is the ratio of the pad size to the hole size. As a simple rule of thumb, the pad should be at least 1.8 times the diameter of the hole, or at least 0.5mm larger. Pads for leaded components like resistors, capacitors and diodes should be round, with around 70 thou diameter being common. Dual In Line (DIL) components like ICs are better suited with oval shaped pads (60 thou high by 90-100 thou wide is common). Most surface mount components use rectangular pads, although surface mount SO package ICs should use oval pads.

Vias:
 Vias connect the tracks from one side of your board to another, by

way of a hole in your board.



Vias are made with electrically plated holes, called Plated Through Holes (PTH). Plated through holes allow electrical connection between different layers on your board ..
What is the difference between a via and a pad? Practically speaking there is no real difference, they are both just electrically plated holes. But there are differences when it comes to PCB design packages. Pads and Vias are, and should be, treated differently. You can globally edit them separately, and do some more advanced things. So don t use a pad in place of a via, and vice-versa.

Polygons:


Polygons are available on many PCB packages. A polygon automatically fills in (or floods ) a desired area with copper, which flows around other pads and tracks. They are very useful for laying down ground planes. Make sure you place polygons after you have placed all of your tacks and pads.

Clearances:
  

Electrical clearances are an important requirement for all boards. Too tight a clearance between tracks and pads may lead to hairline shorts and other etching problems during the manufacturing process. Don t push the limits of your manufacturer unless you have to, stay above their recommended minimum spacing if at all possible.. At least 15 thou is a good clearance limit for basic through hole designs, with 10 thou or 8 thou being used for more dense surface mount layouts.

Component Placement & Design:

 

An old saying is that PCB design is 90% placement and 10% routing. the concept that component placement is by far the most important aspect of laying out a board certainly holds true. Good component placement will make your layout job easier and give the best electrical performance. Every designer will have their own method of placing components, and if you gave the same circuit. Many people like to jump straight into placing all the components into what they think is the most optimum position on the board, all in one hit. Whilst this can work for small circuits, you don t have much of a hope when you have more complex circuits with hundreds of components spread across many functional circuit blocks.

 

Procedure:


Component placement and design

Set your snap grid, visible grid, and default track/pad sizes.

 Throw down all the components onto the board.  Divide and place your components into functional building

blocks where possible.

 Identify layout critical tracks on your circuit and route them first.  Place and route each building block separately, off the board.  Move completed building blocks into position on your main board.  Route the remaining signal and power connections between

blocks.
 Do a Design Rule Check.  Get someone to check it.

Basic Routing:
  

The longer your total track length, the greater it s resistance, capacitance and inductance. All of which can be undesirable factors. Tracks should only have angles of 45 degrees. Avoid the use of right angles, and under no circumstances use an angle greater than 90 degrees. Point to point tracking may look more efficient to a beginner at first, but there are a few reasons you shouldn t use it. The first is that it s ugly, always an important factor in PCB design! The second is that it is not very space efficient when you want to run more tracks on other layers. Always take your track to the center of the pad, don t make your track and pad just touch . There are few reasons for this. The first is that it s sloppy and unprofessional. The second is that your program may not think that the track is making electrical connection to the pad. Only take one track between 100 thou pads unless absolutely necessary. Only on large and very dense designs should you consider two tracks between pads. Keep power and ground tracks running in close proximity to each other if possible, don t send them in opposite directions around the board. This lowers the loop inductance of your power system, and allows for effective bypassing. Do not place vias under components. Once the component is soldered in place you won t be able to access the joint to solder a feed through.

 

An example of GOOD power routing (Left) and BAD power routing (Right)

An example of GOOD routing (Left) and BAD routing (Right)

Finishing Touches:


If you have thin tracks (<25 thou) then it s nice to add a chamfer to any T junctions, thus eliminating any 90 degree angles. This makes the track more physically robust, and prevents any potential manufacturing etching problems. Check that you have any required mounting holes on the board. Keep mounting holes well clear of any components or tracks. Allow room for any washers and screws. Double check for correct hole sizes on all your components. Ensure that all your vias are identical, with the same pad and hole sizes. Remember your pad to hole ratio. Errors here can cause breakouts in your via pad, where the hole, if shifted slightly can be outside of your pad.

 

Some other Terms:

 Mechanical Layer. The mechanical layer (which may go under other names
depending on the package) is used to provide an outline for your board, and other manufacturing instructions. It is not part of your actual PCB design, but is very useful to tell the PCB manufacturer how you want your board assembled.

 Keep out: The keepout layer generally defines areas on your board that you don t want
auto or manually routed.

 Layer Alignment. When the PCB manufacturer makes your board, there will be
alignment tolerances on the artwork film for each layer. This includes track, plane, silkscreen, solder mask, and drilling.

 Netlists: A netlist is essentially a list of connections ( nets ) which correspond to your

schematic. It also contains the list of components, component designators, component footprints

Single Sided Design:



Single sided design can greatly reduce the cost of your board. If you can fit your design on a single sided board then it is preferable to do so. The single-sided boards are manufactured mostly by the print and etch method. Normally, components are used to jump over conductor tracks, but if this is not possible, jumper wires are used. a single sided board design will be regarded inversely proportional to the number of jumper links used.

Double Sided Design:

   

Double sided design can also give you the chance to make use of good ground plane techniques, required for high frequency designs. With two-sided boards, traces can now cross over each other, increasing density without point-to-point soldering. Design is the two sides to interact with each other, passing signals and voltage from one side to the other. The hardest part of two-layer circuit is getting them to align with each other. With efficient software package and practice this way can be learned.

Multi layer Design:

  

A multi layer PCB is much more expensive and difficult to manufacture than a single or double sided board, but it really does give you a lot of extra density to route power and signal tracks. By having your signals running on the inside of your board, you can pack your components more tightly on your board to give you a more compact design. Multi layer boards come in even number of layers. With 4, 6, and 8 layer being the most common.

Technically you can get an odd number of layers manufactured, like a 3 layer board for instance. But it really won t save you any cost over a 4 layer board. In fact a 3 layer board might even be more expensive than a 4 layer board because it calls for a non-standard manufacturing process. With a multi layer board, you would typically dedicate one complete layer to a ground plane, and another to your power. If you have room on the top or bottom layer, you can route any additional power rail tracks on there. Power layers are almost always in the middle of the board, with the ground closer to the top layer.

 

 Power Planes:
 

Using power planes can drastically reduce the power wiring inductance and impedance to your components. A power plane is basically one solid copper layer of board dedicated to either your Ground or Power rails, or both. Power planes go in the middle layers of your board, usually on the layers closest to the outer surfaces. A simple power plane will not have any tracks (or removed copper bits) at all on it, but will just be one solid layer of copper. In which case you don t need to lay down any tracks to remove any copper. On more complex boards we split the power plane by laying down tracks.

 

Good Grounding:


Use copper, and lots of it. The more copper you have in your ground path, the lower the impedance. This is highly desirable for many electrical reasons. Use polygon fills and planes where possible. Always dedicate one of your planes to ground on multi-layer boards. Make it the layer closest to the top layer. Run separate ground paths for critical parts of your circuit, back to the main filter capacitor(s). stitch required points straight through to your ground plane, don t use any more track length than you need.

  

 Good Bypassing:
Active components and points in your circuit which draw significant switching current should always be bypassed . This is to smooth out your power rail going to a particular device.
 

Bypassing is using a capacitor. A typical bypass capacitor value is 100nF, although other values such as 1uF, 10nF and 1nF are often used to bypass different frequencies

IMPORTANT FILE FORMATS

Net List :

Your PCB package can then import this netlist file and do many

things. It can automatically load all the required components onto your blank board. It can also assign a net name to each of your component pins. With nets assigned to your PCB components, it is now possible to Auto Route, do Design Rule Checking, and display component connectivity.

Rats Nest

File Formats: Excellon Drill File:

 Excellon Files provide a command sequence

to a system that drills PCBs  This equipment (or its computer driver) has an interpreter that receives and executes the commands in sequence.  The next two slides describe the list of commands that are interpreted.

Source: Norme Excellon, available at http://www.forelec.ch/www/norme_excellon.htm, accessed 12 Feb 2008. Excellon file format is governed by ANSI/IPC-NC-349 .

% X#Y# T# M30 M00 M25 M31 M01 M02 X#Y# R#M02X#Y# M02 X#Y# M70 M02 X#Y# M80 M02 X#Y# M90 M08 N# /

Rewind and Stop Move and Drill Tool Selection End of Program End of Program Beginning of Pattern Beginning of Pattern End of Pattern Repeat Pattern Multiple Repeat Pattern Swap Axis Mirror Image X Axis Mirror Image Y Axis End of Step and Repeat Block Sequence Number Block Delete

R#X#Y# G05, G81 G04 X# G90 G91 G92 X#Y# G93 X#Y# M48 M47 M71 M72 Snn Fnn

Repeat Hole Select Drill Mode Variable Dwell (ignored) Absolute Mode Incremental Mode Set Zero Set Zero Program Header to first "%" Operator Message CRT Display Metric Mode English-Imperial Mode Spindle Speed (RPM) Z axis feed speed (IPM)

Typically, only a subset of these commands are used.

File Formats: Excellon Drill File Example

% Reset and rewind. M48 Start of header. M72 Imperial (English) Mode: units in inches T01C0.0420 Tool 1 Change: to 42 mil T02C0.0860 Tool 2 Change: to 86 mil T03C0.0350 : T04C0.0520 : T05C0.1250 : T06C0.0354 : T07C0.0280 : T08C0.1520 Tool 8 Change: 152 mil % End of Header: Drill data follows T01 Select Tool 1 (42 mil) X2120Y1112 Drill at (2120 mil,1112 mil) : (Lots of data removed) T08 Select Tool 8 (152 mil) X3645Y262 Drill at (3645 mil, 262 mil) : (Data removed) M30 End of program.

File Formats: Gerber: Gerber files are typically used to describe the copper foil patterns on the PCB.  The interpreter idea is similar to what was described for the Excellon format.  Since pad shapes and track sizes need to specified, many new commands are used.  These commands are not covered here, but a good source of information can be found in Gerber RS-274X Format User s Guide , Barco Graphics, N.V., Gent, Belgium, 1998: available at .

File Formats: Gerber Photoplotter

Dated

THANK YOU