I guess I shall have to chime in with a ‘me too’, with taking offense at the
comments made about Designers not caring about intelligent data.

I seem to remember a predecessor to the IPC-2581 series of documents and
specifications. The IPC-251x series, in particular a derivative of GenCAD
called GenCAM . This goes back over 12 years to 1999 or 2000 if I recall
correctly. I remember being involved (via e-mail) with the group of
individuals that formed a committee who were responsible for developing this
new specification that would be used to intelligently transfer data from CAD
to CAM environments. It was revolutionary.

Looking back, I see that there were many involved with this effort (who
certainly put more effort and time into this specification than I did). Names
that appear in the documentation include people associated with Valor,
Cadence, Genrad and many others.

This document got up to Revision B before it got shut down. Basically the
industry (if I recall correctly) did not want to support two competing
specifications. ODB++ and GenCAM. So another solution was devised which would
combine GenCAM and ODB++, and lo, it was called IPC-2581. I still see
companies like Valor, Cadence, Mentor Graphics and more represented on the
committee.

So, what is the goal here? Why are we still support and promoting ODB++ when
there is one standard being proposed that will be an open standard supported
by the IPC?

It’s almost like Valor (now Mentor Graphics) was on the IPC committee saying,
“Yes, let’s merge our standards, but we will continue developing our ODB++
independently.”

As for the comments that relate to handing intelligent data to the fabrication
shop or assembly house, I don’t want to upset anyone but in my experience
(which is not as great as others), I have discovered that the folks that
produce the boards or populate them, have their own set ways of doing things,
and usually resort to using shop-edited-Gerber files or creating pick-n-place
data typing it in manually, rather than use ‘intelligent data’, just because
they have learned through their experience that the data is inconsistent with
their processes, and it is easier to generate it manually, than try to edit
‘intelligent data’ to get what they want. Most of those folks are in a
time-crunch, and have to get the job done. 

Yes, it all boils down to educating everyone that is involved in the process,
and get all of us to use intelligent methods and data to get products produced
in a timely fashion and at low-cost. Unfortunately, a lot of that takes time –
and money. But not just that, it also takes a commitment from ALL involved in
the process chain to work together. Not just the Designers.

Regards,

James Jackson
Oztronics


Quoting Andy Kowalewski <[log in to unmask]>:

> Hi all,
>  
> There's a great thread on PCBdesign007 talking about ODB++. It started
> with
> Julian Coates, ex Valor employee and now Mentor Graphics Alliance Manager
> having a rant about designers not understanding their outputs and how
> ODB++
> is the way to go. I took umbrage at his letter, and so did Jack Olson,
> bless
> his kind heart. Their letters are in the links below, read them in that
> order. Then think about the new data format coming up through IPC-2581.
> Designers not knowing what they're doing? BS of the first order.
>  
> http://www.pcbdesign007.com/pages/zone.cgi?a=84003
>  
> http://www.pcbdesign007.com/pages/zone.cgi?a=83862
>  
> Cheers.........
>  
> Andy Kowalewski
> AdvantagePCB Pty Ltd
> +61 424 432 235
>  
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
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