Introduction

In 1990 Artwork released MTOOLS (a converter from MSK to Gerber/DXF/GDSII) for EEsof's Academy which eventually merged with HP's Series IV and finally emerged as Advanced Design System. Thousands of MTOOLs licenses have been distributed worldwide.

Later, Artwork developed a bidirectional translator between EGS Archive and AutoCAD DXF file format. This was used as a way to import mechanical data into ADS. Finally, we developed a Gerber reader that exported EGS which was used to import layout data from PCBs.

In 2007 Agilent replaced these third party tools with translators developed internally. However Artwork still can offer customized solutions to ADS users for applications and requirements where the Agilent import and export tools do not solve a particular problem.

Because we focus solely on translation issues we can delve deeper into the details of each conversion and often provide a superior solution based on an end-user's particular situation.

The App Notes below describe some of the unique capabilities our translators bring to ADS users.