As a CEM (Contract Electronics Manufacturer) it is important to be able to receive customers' PCB data and manipulate it quickly and effectively for use in manufacturing the product.
As a customer of a CEM, providing the right data in the right format can save you time and money as well as potential heartache later.
The electronic files contain PCB blank manufacturing detail, usually in the form of Gerber data, showing PCB design / manufacturing details and layout, plus parts lists and X-Y coordinates for all components.
The ability to use such data has significantly reduced the cost of set up and tooling of new products in recent years since much of the necessary work can be automated or semi-automated.
Using this data, the CEM can carry out an advance check of DFM (Design for manufacture) aspects of the product, such as spacing, lead pitches, pad sizes, fiducial marks and how best to panelise the PCB blank for process handling and efficiency etc. This stage helps to enable feedback to the customer of any potential issues or improvements required before they incur costs.
From the Gerber data, SMT stencils can be ordered and these may require data manipulation to adjust paste aperture shapes and sizes to ensure that joints have sufficient solder or to avoid short circuits and clean printing within pads. If not enough attention is paid to these details the process yield can suffer.
Next comes SMT placement programming data for PCB population. This requires a software module to derive the correct information in the correct format for the machines concerned, such as part number, position, orientation and package. For conventional assembly the data can be equally important for generating ACI (automatic Component Insertion) programmes.
Similar information will be required for AOI (Automatic Optical Inspection) and ATE (Automatic Test equipment) programmes to enable correct identification at verification stages.
In addition, one can derive diagrams for the stages of hand assembly and quickly add process or care notes as required for tricky areas. Diagrams and dimensions for jigging and tooling can be extracted. E.g wave solder pallets.
CT Production has just upgraded its GC Powerplace software package to 10.2.2, to ensure it keeps ahead with all the latest features. | 
