Number One Systems' Easy-PC PCB Design Suite Incorporates IPC-2581

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Number One Systems, a technology-leading PCB design solution company, announced the release of Easy-PC™ version version 26, which incorporates an IPC-2581 export capability, along with over 25 other new technology features based on user requests from professional PCB designers.

IPC-2581 is an intelligent standard for printed circuit board and assembly manufacturing description data and transfer methodology. It goes beyond Gerber files, simple graphical representations of the design, and adds design intelligence such as stackup, nets, and components. “As IPC-2581 has become a more common and even the preferred standard, our userbase has increasingly requested this capability,” said Fiona Colman, marketing manager at Number One Systems. “Our new version 26 fully implements the standard and includes a number of options to create the output required for manufacturing, assembly, and test.”

“This is a great addition for PCB Designers using Easy-PC,” said Hemant Shah, IPC-2581 Consortium Chair. “IPC-2581 will help Easy-PC users ensure superior manufacturability, quality, reliability, and consistency while reducing the back and forth between the designer and the manufacturer regarding the electronics assemblies built for their products.”

Easy-PC version 26 incorporates a number of new and enhanced design rules checks (DRC) and design for manufacturing (DFM) options in both Schematic Capture and PCB design. New checks, Minimum Solder Mask Width, Solder Mask To Track and Minimum Text Size aid manufacturability and prevent costly mistakes. One of the new design verification checks, Modified Pour Areas, alerts the designer to incomplete design changes that would not be incorporated in manufacturing. The Unconnected Gates option removes unnecessary DRC warnings related to unconnected power pins in a multi-gate package. These and other new checks in version 26 will add to the validation of a design giving an additional level of confidence for successful manufacture.

Easy-PC version 26 also adds a number of productivity and usability enhancements:

• A New Toggle Layers dialog gives users complete control over how they want to see their design in various scenarios with fast layer switching and combinations.
• IDF Export adds new export options that enable users to fully protect their intellectual property (IP), which includes Removing illegal characters from Component Names and Including or Excluding Component Values.
• The new 3D viewing option, Exclude off-board items, which when selected prevents components and other items that are not entirely within a board outline to be excluded from the view. This can help, for example, if it's a standard drawing outline with title blocks, it will exclude those portions that are not on a board.
• Additional enhancements include Interactive Mitre/Fillet of Any Angle segments, Changes to the Rulers to further support 4K monitors, Cancel Move After Paste, Goto Text and Values and an enhanced Library Manager Report, to name just a few.

The Number One Systems commitment to the continual development and expansion of Easy-PC ensures that the customers' investment in software design tools are kept up-to-date and abreast of any changes in technology.