Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design SMT Electronics Assembly Manufacturing Forum

Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design Forum

SMT electronics assembly manufacturing forum.


Is there some general file format for chip placement on pcb

Rodion

#26292

Is there some general file format for chip placement on pcb | 7 November, 2003

Hello, I am writing a software that deals with chip placement on PCB and I would like to know if there is some standart way to describe what are the coordinates of the chips on the pcb, I know that Gerber file contains all the drill holes and tracks, however I am more concerned with HOW do manufacturers program their machinery to place chips onto PCB. I would be very grateful if someone could briefly exaplin how do most manufacturers (and I'm more concerned about major ones that have to deal with great volume) input data into their machinery, and if there is a standart file format that describes chip placement on PCB

Thank you

Rodion

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#26364

Is there some general file format for chip placement on pcb | 17 November, 2003

The format is X,Y Theta of the component center for all placement machines. Gerber data can be useless, unless you have the reference from pin 1 to the component center. Some machines offer a CAD convertion tool. I don't know any machine, which can take Gerber data directly.

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Giordano Trecca

#26455

Is there some general file format for chip placement on pcb | 27 November, 2003

I'm using a CIM software (http://www.aiscorp.com/products_npi_circuitcam.htm) to import gerber files and produce pick&place programs and paper/paperless documentation. It's very friendly, useful and fast, but not cheap. I don't know any other software that can do that. Also, many machines have proprietary converting software from variously formatted ASCII centroid files to internal coordinates system.

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 Reflow System

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