PCB

The PCB is the bare board your parts go on. Together with the Bill of Materials and the centroid, the PCB data is one of the three things we build your PCBA from. We do not make the bare board ourselves. We have it made by one of our PCB manufacturers in Europe or Asia. Which of them we can choose from depends on the format you send.

Which format to send

Send a Gerber and drill set. It is still the most common format and the one that is supported best: every PCB manufacturer accepts it. That gives us the most freedom in picking a manufacturer for your board. Do you have an ODB++ archive as well? Add it. It saves you a separate centroid file.

Gerber and drill

A set of files: one Gerber file per layer, plus the drill files. Every CAD tool can write it and every PCB manufacturer can read it. Two things go wrong regularly: the drill files are forgotten, and the outline is drawn on the wrong layer. The Gerber and drill page shows what belongs in the set, with an example set to download.

ODB++

One archive with the layers, the drill data, the stackup and the component placements. It is a fixed format, so there are no file names, units or column layouts to guess, and we read it as it is. The catch: it is a proprietary Siemens format that most PCB manufacturers do not accept. With only an ODB++ archive we can have your bare board made by a few manufacturers only. What we read from it, and what it does not replace, is on the ODB++ page.

IPC-2581

The open standard of the IPC: one XML file that describes the whole board, much like ODB++. We do not support it. Industry support is still best for Gerber and drill, so send a Gerber and drill set. What IPC-2581 is, and why we do not take it, is on the IPC-2581 page.

What we do with your PCB data

Once your files are in, we send the PCB data to one of our PCB manufacturers, and we optimise the paste layer for prototyping. Is something unclear? Then one of our engineers asks you. All of this happens before you order: only when everything is clear do we set your request to Ready to Order.

Your price in seconds

You do not have to wait for that analysis to know what your PCBA will cost. Fill out the calculator and you have a price that is about 95% correct. After the analysis we make it final in our offer.