It will depend on how "advanced" your CM is. We are currently using Valor and have had great success with developing tooling etc from CAD information. Pending the amount of information in the CAD, package, polarity, footprint attributes etc, we can generally use the customers CAD as a root for our madness and then procede with little change to the information on the PCBA level. But we would make modifications like poly shapes and placement panelization etc on the info that is not usually done as a PCB designer, but more as a Manf. Engineer. ODB++ makes for a good format as well as GenCAD and GenCAM. Since we are on the Valor side of things, ODB++ is our preferred. We do have translators for different CAD outputs, so it just depends on what our customer has to offer. Hopefully something better than blueprints....:^)+) Rodney L. Miller, CID VP / Director of Manufacturing Tri-onics Inc. ph (618) 654-9831 fx (618) 654-6122 e [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> -----Original Message----- From: Sauer, Steven T. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 1:30 PM Subject: Standard Data Exchange Formats for SMT Placement Hello All, It's been awhile but I have a question for the contract manufacturers out there. Understanding that each placement machine requires a data translator (i.e. CIMbridge) to provide a friendly data format for ease of programming and setup, but what is the preferred data format that you require from your customers? One other question: Is there a preferred industry accepted standard data format? The reason for my question is that we have multiple suppliers and are attempting to get our CAD folks in tune with our CMs needs. Thanks in advance for your inputs. Steve Sauer Sr. Manufacturing Engineer Northrop Grumman, Electronic Systems Xetron Cincinnati, OH --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 -----------------------------------------------------