Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.69 12/14/2011

Net name checking has been added in ADFI output converting non alphanumeric characters to underscore.

The board name in ADFI output is set to the base name of the output file name.
For example c:\tmp\odb.txt ==> BRD_odb.

The default color set for ADS Auto cycles red, yellow, blue, magenta and cyan for metal layers, while dielectric are green.

Back drill checking has been added for top and bottom entry points.
This is activated in the Drills dialog box.

String Search capability has been added to the detailed log dialog.

Netex-G Linux and Solaris V1.67 12/05/2011

The netex-g engine failed when a job file contained multiple "." (dot character) in the job file name.

Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.68a 11/11/2011

The shell was never running in incremental mode while the auto view log option was not set. This has been fixed so the shell runs incrementally as it has before when the auto view log option was set.

Fixed component compatible output to preserve polygon format.
Before this fix, the output for the following formats was always outputting Leonov:

Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.66 9/13/2011

Wires drawn as boundaries are now supported. This means that in addition to wire as a Gerber draw, wire rectangles and wire outlines using G36/G37 G-Codes are imported as wires.

A new section has been defined for the Netex-G job file (*.njb) to support Gerber D-Code filtering.
The example below illustrates D-Code filtering applied in the following manner:

    (a) Filter 117 and 118 dcodes on   all  metal stackups
    (b) Filter  13 and  14 dcodes on 3,5,7  metal stackups
    (c) Filter  15 and  16 dcodes on     5  metal stackup
    (d) Filter  16 and  17 dcodes on     7  metal stackup

    Each line in the ADD_ARGS subsection must be in the format:

GBR2GDS METAL [[stackup_numbers] | ALL] -filterdc:[dcode_numbers]
[stackup_numbers] - comma separated integers
[dcode_numbers]   - comma separated integers

Example:

    B_CUSTOMIZE_FLOW

    B_ADD_ARGS

    GBR2GDS METAL ALL -filterdc:111,112
    GBR2GDS METAL 3,5,7 -filterdc:13,14
    GBR2GDS METAL 5 -filterdc:15,16
    GBR2GDS METAL 7 -filterdc:16,17

    E_ADD_ARGS

    E_CUSTOMIZE_FLOW

Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.65 6/20/2011

For ANF output, the following files are generated:

NAME FORMAT       DESCRIPTION
file_name.anf   ANF Output file


file_name.cmp   ANF Component file


file_name.bdf   IDF Board file
                  Contains: Header, Board Outline, Drill, and Placement sections


file_name.ldf   IDF Library file
                  Contains a series of Electrical sections describing shapes of component packages.

Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.64e 3/15/2011

The first JEDEC parameters were output incorrectly. This has now been fixed.

The following checks have been added:
Layer Details dialog and upon execution: JEDEC values must be greater than wire diameter, and Die thickness must be greater than zero.

Upon execution:
Die "Connect to Layer" must specify an existing metal layer that it is attached to. Drill information must exist for the following output formats: - ASCII with \"Output Via\" set ANF, ACIS and 3Di.

Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.64c 3/03/2011

Fixed a bug where traces were being generated even if they were wider than the user defined max trace width. [Reported by Advantest] This applies especially to ANF output.

Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.64a 2/25/2011

Netex-G shell was revised to find GBRVU.EXE better. The shell will search in the following order:
NETEX-G registry (Advanced Preferences Setting)
gbrvu registry (Gbrvu installation directory)
User Prompt for gbrvu.exe

Ansoft output includes component pins.

Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.64 2/16/2011

Major improvements in processing speed have been made due to customer submissions of very large boards (20-50 conductor layers.) Several key modules were improved including: pad definition generator, net computations, associating vias with nets and proximity metal extraction. For example, an ODB++ file that took 70 minutes to process in V1.63 now processes (on a 4 processor machine) in 5 minutes.

Units for parameters such as Chord Error and Smoothing now conform to the units of the input ODB++ file when the unit preference setting "Same as Input" is selected.

ANF Antipad

Previous versions did not generate an antipad in ANF when a pad stack passed through a "negatively" drawn layer. This has been fixed.

When ANF output is selected an Ansoft component file (CMP) is now produced. This can be imported into SI-Wave so that components are properly located in the simulator. This is only generated for ODB++ input files that have netlist/components in them.

Netex-G V1.63 1/24/2011

Boundary to Path conversion has been improved to capture more paths by using extent areas versus polygon areas along with line to width ratios. Adjustments have also been made to prevent conversion of some polygonal areas which resulted in bad shapes for a given max width value.

Proximity computations for 3Di and ASCII outputs now include vias that intersect with the expansion of the extracted nets.

Netex-G V1.60 12/16/2010

Gerber interpreter has been revised to handle larger RS274X mass parameters. This meant that Gbrunion executions, Netex-G executions, and Gbrvu displaying failed for mass parameters larger than 64K. The problem was fixed by changing this threshold to 2M.

ODB++ import components have been updated to the latest Odb2Gbr v1.84.

Drill to Gerber engine has been updated to reflect the changes made on December 12 and listed below.

Drill to Gerber Upgrade 12/2/2010

Added a new command line option -drlautoscan on all platforms to retrieve the following drill parameter values from the specified set of priorities:

• Drill Format
• Drill Units (inch or mm)
• Zero Inclusion (decimal, leading, or trailing)
• XY coordinate mode (absolute or incremental)

Added a new command line option -refaptfile:apt_file on all platforms.
The -refaptfile:apt_file argument has been added to apply Gerber settings (unit, format precision, zero suppression, and XY incremental or absolute mode) from an aperture file.

Netex-G V1.57 09/09/2010

Added thread number control in the Advanced Preferences dialog.

Unit scaling had been fixed for ASCII and ANF output.

Netex-G V1.55a 06/12/2010

First NETEX-G release with ODB++ import support.

Netex-G V1.51 01/12/2010

Updated the netexgmgr.exe manager to look for the presence of wire data in the job file and to generate the wire endpoints based on that data. This was needed so that a calling application could use NETEX's wire sorting and via generation routines without depending on the NETEX-G GUI. [Requestor: Knights/Magma for BoardView]

Netex-G V1.50 01/04/2010

ported the NETEX-G engines (32 bit) to Linux and tested it on the following platforms: RH4 64/RH5 64/SUSE 10 64. [Requestor: Knights/Magma for BoardView]

includes

drl2gbr engine

netexmgr

netex engine and boolean engine/libraries

does not include an engine for reading IPC-D-356 or AIF or for processing Wire Layers as these were part of the NETEX-G GUI that was not ported to Linux.

NETEX-G V1.49 10/19/2009

IPC356A import fix to support missing X and Y sign token.

NETEX-G V1.49 10/19/2009

IPC356A import fix to handle SI keyword. SI implies MM with 1.0e-3 grid.

The button failed to maintain the values that were restored in the padstack definition editor. This has now been fixed.

The padstack scan in Labels page used incorrect grid. This has been fixed.

NETEX-G V1.49 10/19/2009

This tab was used for defining padstack definitions which were referred to in the "Nodes" tab. It has been changed in the following manner:

• It now displays padstack references.
• Definitions can be added, modified, or removed by hitting "Edit Padstacks" Each definition has a set of padstack geometries specifying layer, shape, x and y dimensions, and the drill size. The shapes provided are: CIRCLE, RECT, SQUARE, ELLIPSE, and OBROUND. The "Reset Geometry Changes" restores the padstack geometries to their initial scanned state or first save state if the definition is new, user specified, rather than scanned.
• The references can only have their names modified to one of the available definitions. Any number of references can be selected for modification..
• Hitting the "Pan to Padstacks" button pans to a single reference selected.
• Hitting the "Scan for Padstacks" button will obtain padstack references and their corresponding definitions from the drill information provided. It is currently the only way to add references..
• Hitting the "Clear Padstacks" button will remove all definitions and references..
• Hitting the "Select Label" check box, when set, places Gbrvu in a mode which allows the user to choose a padstack or other label with a right mouse click on a given text marker..

Paths found are extended to center of connecting vias.
More work has been done with connectivity.

All "Labels" dialog tabs can turn displays on and off for nets, nodes, and padstacks.

NETEX-G V1.48 8/6/2009

Boundary to path conversion has been updated to improve upon connectivity. This version supports creation of curved path with width.

Minimal hole validation has been implemented in unionization.

NETEX-G V1.47b 11/4/08

This image fixes AWR's Netex-G problem with long path. A buffer in the gdsfilte.exe engine was too small for the path length provided. It is now fixed.

NETEX-G V1.46 09/17/08

A bug was found in the Netex-G GUI having to do with changing Layer Types and not setting a Gerber File for the Metal Type. This caused problems afterwards when trying to open up the .njb file. It also prevented execution after having opened that same .njb file. This has now been fixed. Any layer input with a blank file name field is now ignored..

This deals with a Gerber unionization process that handles illegal polygons. This has now been fixed..

NETEX-G V1.44 04/10/08

During the boundary to path routine, the program crashed due to memory management. Problem was fixed.
The boundary to path routine was improved as well.

NETEX-G V1.43 03/18/08

Bug fix to exceptions that occurred in problem file from Robert Bosch.

The Output Settings now have controls to select this option (requested by Ansys).

NETEX-G V1.42 02/14/08

Program had a bug handling very small arc draws. This has been fixed.

The latest boolean engine is included with better support for boundary to path.

NETEX-G V1.41 01/10/08

Added support for UNITS CUST where no parameter follows (defaults to Imperial with 0.0001 resolution.)

Added a new output option for Ansoft's ANF file format. If checked, this option attempts to recognize constant width paths/traces and output them as paths in ANF instead of boundaries. This is useful when the target tool is Si-Wave which uses different simulation algorithms for traces vs planes.

When the path was long, ACIS output would fail. This was corrected

IPC Import was failing when the stackup included Wire Layers. This has been fixed.

NETEX-G V1.40 09/20/07

Two new 3D output formats have been released: ACIS (.sat) and 3Di. Licenses are required for these outputs.

To accompany the new 3D outputs, 3D Wire modeling has been added.

NETEX-G V1.39 08/02/07

A bug introduced into the ANF formatter that improperly defined voids in planes has been corrected.

The ability to define transparency for each layer (in addition to color) has been added. This is primarily for the new 3Di and ACIS output file formats which support transparency and make visualization of complex geometries much clearer.

Drill to Gerber was updated to support drill files from OrCAD and Cadence tools. These files have non conventional header in the drill file with the drill definitions.
We have also added support to the R (repeat) command in the drill file.

NETEX-G V1.38 06/21/07

New ACIS 3D output format. 3D tools like SolidWorks, ProEngineer and other siumlation tools read ACIS files.

GUI Revision which moves output settings to a separate dialog. A button labeled "Output..." launches this dialog.

This version is USB enabled.

Gerber custom apertures are now booleanized during Gerber reading. This solves the AWR problem you sent recently.

An output filename with no path would go to wherever the current working directory was. It is now forced to go to the output directory if no path is specified.

NETEX-G V1.37 03/11/07

This has been fixed by reducing the grid to 3 decimal places for this situation.

NETEX-G V1.36 02/14/07

This image fixes the IDT problem with wire sets that are asymmetrical. In this case we needed to add more criteria to define which ends connect to dies and which to fingers. It is now fixed.

In some cases the njb file indicated user defined windows but defined none. This condition caused the boolean operations to crash. This has now been fixed by guarding against this situation..

NETEX-G didn't support special German characters like 'ö'. It was mistakenly being converted to ' ' because it was misinterpreted as falling out of an acceptable ASCII range. This has now been fixed..

Any Current .njb file that is empty will remain the current .njb file. This file will instead be overwritten by the other .njb file that is being selected. Otherwise, the file selected will become the current .njb file.

NETEX-G V1.35 01/26/07

Fix the wrunbat.exe component to handle this problem. An old Windows IO function was being used which only supported up to 128 characters.

The accumulation of temporary files presented a problem over time. The more stack up layers present in a given project, the more quickly the problems presented themselves. The error message reported was:
"the input file is empty"
The solution was to create temporary sub directories that are removed after a Netex-G execution is completed.

The resulting GDSII file was illegal (as reported by Qkcvu) - it does not contain the large ground net one would expect to see..

Canceling out of this dialog caused program crash. This has now been fixed..

The help buttons do not work. - Help files are provided for CST and standard versions nd context sensitive help has been added throughout various dialogs appearing from the shell; A help button was added to main dialog in shell; A resource file, "netex-g_help_index.txt", is used for the context sensitive help.

File->Import/Export Technology should not change the name of the current *.njb file - Could not address this issue because we can't duplicate it.

The file filter for drill files is broken - This was found to be working correctly and no change was made.

The dialog box: "NetexG execution finished successfully" is not needed - The dialog has been suppressed.

The ability to add labels using GBRVU (their GBR_IMP) is broken in 129A. - Gbrvu v3.07a addresses problems encountered with labels. 6. Switch from metal to wire bond generated soft key problem - Netex-g shell added soft key licensing to Gerber to GDS module required when such conversion is triggered.

NETEX-G V1.29 06/09/06

The boolean engine used in NETEX-G has been updated resulting in greatly improved compute speed.

The importation of IPC356 files (used to annotate nets and nodes) has been greatly enhanced. Support has been added for generating nodes from IPC356 as well as filtering out nodes defined by vias.

NETEX-G V1.27 08/28/05

The polygon formatter was mistakenly dropping holes in polygons. The job of this formatter is to deal with these holes by drawing cut lines or generating butting edge polygons depending on what the user selects. This is now fixed.

Fixed "View All", "View Labels" and viewing for window preferences to support any number of stack up layers.

NETEX-G V1.24c 05/27/05

This release of NETEX-G uses a new boolean engine that can "repair" certain illegal polygons. This means that the likelihood that a polygon is dropped in the output because the boolean engine deemed it to be illegal (typically a small self-intersecting loop) is reduced or eliminated.

fixed a bug when converting a short path (one where the length is less than the width) turn into a boundary. The old routine might generate an illegal polygon which would be dropped.

Improved Scan for Data


Earlier versions of drill2gbr required that a % (percent sign) be present at the beginning of the file since this is the convention that indicates the end of the header and the start of the data. But many drill files created by well known PCB tools do not include the % sign. Therefore the old scan routine would indicate that it could not find any valid data in the file. This has been fixed. The % sign is no longer mandatory.

Close Gerber File After Writing


Earlier versions of drill2gbr did not close the newly created Gerber file -- this was a potential bug depending on what other applications might do with it.

Improved Detection of Tool Size


Previous versions required that the parameters associated with a T-code (the code used to select the tool for drilling) follow the Excellon syntax rigorously or the drill diameter could not be automatically determined. The new version has a "smarter" parser that attempts to determine the drill diameter even when the exact syntax is not followed:

For eaxmple a line in the drill file such as

 T1      size: 0.010000    qty:69

will now be understood to have a drill diameter of 0.01 even though this syntax is not the Excellon defined syntax.

The wirebond endpoint detection and sorting routines were upgraded to support MCMs i.e. designs with mutliple chips. The wirebond layers for each chip must be separate -- NETEX-G now calculates a "center" for each Wirebond layer independently. [reported by IDT]

A bug was found where data from a complex metal layer was dropped in the output. This was traced to a Gerber file that had 157 internal layers of LPD/LPC which exceeded the amount that some of the NETEX-G internal engines would handle. This has been fixed. [reported by IDT]

NETEX V1.23i 12/01/04

A bug was found in the module that assigns net labels (names) when the polygon for the net being labeled had more than 8191 vertices (this may occur for large ground planes ...) This has been fixed. [Reported by Altera.]

When creating a GDSII output file, NETEX-G will issue a warning if the user has specified parameters that exceed the limits of the GDSII specification. There are two current settings that can result in non-standard GDSII output:

Leonov Polygons - if the user sets polygons to Leonov in the Preferences Dialog, the resulting GDSII output will have a special record type that is not supported by GDSII readers. Users should select either Cut Lines or No Cut Lines for GDSII output.

Max points greater than 8191 - the GDSII record structure limits the maximum number of vertices per boundary/path to 8191. It is possible in NETEX-G to set a value as high as 64000 but this requires that NETEX-G output consecutive XY records which many GDSII parsers cannot read.

Corrected a bug in the output polygon formatter that seemed to occur when the maximum vertex count was set "relatively" low (in the test case it was set to 500)

Corrected a problem with the NETEX-G shell (the GUI) where the available features and the licensed features did not align.

Corrected a problem with unionization of the "bands." When such unionization failed and an exception was generated, the resulting incorrect output passed to subsequent modules and resulted in incorrect net assignments. This has been fixed [reported by Synaptics]

This version also includes at least one module with the new FLEXLM node locked licensing routine.

If the NETEX-G input files or job file was placed in a very long directory name the program might not complete as various modules were called. This has been fixed. (Reported by AWR)

NETEX-G has a maximum of 8 places dynamic range. Some users were creating Gerber files with formats such as 3.6 or 4.5 which caused NETEX-G to behave in an unpredictable fashion. NETEX-G now will "clip" the input data using the following rules.

If the input Gerber file is specified as M.N then it will be treated as if it were X.Y by clipping.

Step 1

 if ((N < 1) || (N > 6))   then  Y = 6

                           else  Y = N

Step 2

 if ((M + Y) > 8 )         then  X = 8 - Y

                           else  X = M

Example M.N = 4.5

Since N is neither less than 1 nor greater than 6, Y = N = 5

M+Y= 4+5 = 9 which is greater than 8; hence X = 8-5 = 3

the data is clipped to 3.5

The boolean engine in version 1.23c has been updated to synchronize with general improvements in the boolean engine and the result is that version 1.23c is significantly faster for large complex input files.

corrected a module for EGS output that linked to a missing DLL.

Corrected a problem that occurs for a single user floating license -- the module that finds the wire endpoints for a wirebond layer was not releasing its license preventing a user from continuing.

NETEX-G dropped vias in dual-CPU machine. This has been fixed.
Reported by Fluent.

argument to netexgmgr.exe so that if the user is running without the GUI, they can explicitly specify the number of threads to use. This is for OEM use of the engine.

NETEX-G now includes an output to Agilent's EGS archive format which is the native layout format for ADS. This will enable users of Agilent's ADS to import Gerber data after it has been organized by NETEX-G.

Previous versions of NETEX-G always output the data in either inches or mm depending on the Gerber file units. Some of our IC customers requested GDSII units in um. This feature has been added.

You can now change the units of the output and the scale factor from the Preferences dialog. You can select inches, mils, cm, mm, or um as output units.

If you are calling netexgmgr via command line use the argument: -outunit:< inch | mil | cm | mm | um > . To multiply the size by a scale factor, you can change the value in the shell, or use -outscale:<factor> on the command line (factor is a double-precision floating point number).

Previous version of NETEX-G did not recognize the special wire layer when outputting GDSII. This version now accepts WIRE layers for GDSII output and automatically creates a "via" from the wire endpoint to the metal below it. The via is only created on the "outside" end of the wire with the assumption that the die pad is on the inside end.

FLEXlm node-locked license bug was fixed.

The dialog that diplays the log file now allows the user to jump to each warning message.

The program's routine to automatically recognize vias (from round and square shaped pads) was occassionally "fooled" by large round objects that were not pads. A max via size parameter has been added to instruct NETEX-G that any object larger than this max value cannot be a via. (reported by Honeywell)

Enables the user to label nets or nodes at the die end of bond wires. This is very useful as often the designer has the die pad coordinates and die pad numbers/net names.

Fixed an instability in the user interface that caused a program lock up.

Version 1.18 updates the conversion of wirebonds to be consistent with Ansoft's wire bond requirements in the ANF file format. Wirebonds can be imported as a series of Gerber files and the program automatically sorts our the die end vs the package end of the wires. Pads are dropped onto the specified metal layer in order to connect the wire to the top metal in the ANF file format.

This new feature allows interaction with GBRVU to add net and node labels directly from GBRVU.

Node labels that are added either through GBRVU or by importing data files can now have a padstack associated with them. This padstack will be passed to the Ansoft Neutral file; ANF requires such a padstack placed so that wires or solder balls can be attached to that point.

This new feature enables a user to select a clipping region that is shaped as a polygon; for many types of circuits such as RF layouts and IC packages a polygon selection can easily isolate the desired region of interest.

Net and Node Labels are output as text in the DXF file format. The text is now center/middle justified -- previously the text was lower left justified.

GBRVU has been enhanced so that one can pan from point to point by holding down the middle mouse button or wheel.

If two identical strings of text were encountered as net labels the program would fail. This has been fixed.

The AIF import now allows the user to choose between die pads, fingers and ball pads when importing labels. This was added for better Ansoft Neutral file support.

The proximity net geometries are now much "smoother" because the algorithm used to expand the area to gather the proximity net has been improved to produce less jagged edges.

Wirebond coordinates can now be imported from an AIF II file and passed into the output. Net connectivity is established based on the "finger" end of the wire.

Fixed a bug where redefined apertures were not supported if the file prefix was the same from Gerber file to Gerber file i.e. testbd.gtl, testbd.gp2, testbd.gbl

Added the ability to define a "window" selection when processing large complicated files. Only the data within the window will be extracted. The window can be set either by entering the coordinates manually or by picking them from the GBRVU display. This dialog is available under Preferences | Advanced.

Prior to this version one could not request Leonov polygons and get a correct proximity or neighbor net. This is now possible.

The 2D DXF output option now has the following enhancements:

1. node labels are now written using strings of text instead of polyline strokes.
   
   
2. node text justification is now centered
   
   
3. node text height is user controlled
   
   
4. node text layer is user controlled
   
   

Net names were preceded by "STRUCT" key instead of "NET" key whenever there was no labeling. This has now been fixed.

The extraction request for neighbor nets was fixed. Previous version output the proximity_net even if neighbor net was requested. Leonov polygons still not supported.

The layer stackup information (collected in the GUI and saved in the .njb file) is now included in the output ASCII file in its own section. This should make it easy for another program reading the ASCII output to apply the correct Z values and widths.

The ability to specify an extraction has been added. This includes the ability to get the proximity net or the neighor nets. However this function is not currently working if the output geometry selected is Leonov polygons. (Leonov polygons contain voids and the calculation to select nearby entities does not support voids. Will be addressed shortly)

The ASCII output now includes the node names on the same line as the NET allowing the receiving program to know which nodes are associated with which net.

The drill2gbr module has been updated to include the ability to specify a polygon and the number of sides for the polygon. This enables a much coarser via that is no longer dependent on the value of the arc resolution. (requested by Agilent.)

NETEX v1.00 9/30/02

this is just a partial release for purposes of measuring the speed required to convert small and large layouts.