DipTrace 3.0 Implements Ucamco's Gerber X2

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Together with leading software development company Novarm, Ucamco is delighted to announce the stable release of DipTrace 3.0, the latest generation of Novarm's intuitive, powerful and affordable PCB layout solution for the world's electronic engineers. DipTrace 3.0 is the result of Novarm's understanding of how EDA software is used in the field, its active involvement in the electronic designers' community, and the fact that it listens carefully to its customers. Novarm has responded to its marketplace with a raft of new developments that significantly improve its software's overall performance, ease of use and reliability. This includes fully implementing Gerber X2 for more robust design data transfer, as Novarm's CEO and Senior Software Developer Stanislav Ruev comments: “Gerber X2 manufacturing outputs improve the reliability of CAD-CAM data transfer, ensuring maximum understanding between the designer and the PCB manufacturer”.

Gerber X2 builds on Extended Gerber, the PCB industry's de facto standard image format, to bring unprecedented clarity to the CAD-to-CAM data transmission process. It does this by fully supporting the well-known Extended Gerber image format with a new format for the additional design information, that is clear, unequivocal and automatically machine-readable. This includes details on stackup, the functions of layers and individual features such as pads, and other parameters.

“We are delighted that DipTrace 3.0 is now supporting Gerber X2”, says Karel Tavernier, Managing Director of the Gerber format's custodian and developer, Ucamco. “With this development, Novarm joins the growing number of PCB design software houses that support Gerber X2 because they recognise the importance of absolute data and communications clarity when transferring PCB design data from one company to another. By providing designers with a robust, unequivocal and known language with which to communicate easily and clearly with their manufacturing partners, we and Novarm deliver unprecedented capabilities to the industry-wide CAD-to-CAM data transfer process in particular, and to the future of the PCB industry in general”.

Ucamco confirms that the Gerber X2 output of DipTrace 3.0 has been fully verified and conforms to the X2 specification.

About Ucamco

Ucamco (formerly Barco ETS) is a market leader in PCB CAM software, photoplotting and direct imaging systems, with a global network of sales and support centers. Headquartered in Ghent, Belgium, Ucamco has over 25 years of ongoing experience in developing and supporting leading-edge photoplotters and front-end tooling solutions for the global PCB industry. Key to this success is the company's uncompromising pursuit of engineering excellence in all its products. Ucamco also owns the IP rights on the Gerber File Format through its acquisition of Gerber Systems Corp. (1998).