In this section, we will be looking at some of the materials or files that are used during the process of manufacturing PCBs. These could be:
- PCB Gerber files
- .BRD file
- NC Drill file
What is Gerber File?
Gerber is probably the most common file amongst others that are used in the manufacturing of PCB. Probably you must have heard of manufacturers talking about Gerber files before and wondered what it meant. There is nothing complicated about this since they mean ASCII files. These normally contain data that are Gerber-formatted. There is one unique feature of Gerber files that is worth mentioning. This is the fact that they aren’t subject to design rules or net connectivity. The same can also be said about component libraries.
This is an artwork (2-dimensional) that has the role of dictating the exact position where silkscreen, solder mask, or copper will be placed. It should be noted that just 1 Gerber file can‘t perform all the roles. For instance, if you have one PCB feature (one layer), information about such will be provided by one Gerber file. Therefore, if the board is 2-layered with each side having silkscreen, solder mask and copper, 6 Gerber files will be required.
It is fair enough to say that the Gerber file is the industry’s de-facto standard. This is due to how it is used in describing images on printed circuit boards. These could be drill data, legend, solder mask, copper layers and more.