Generating Wire Coordinates - Correct NJB Setup

If you are running NETEX-G from the command line manager (not the GUI) and you wish to have the engine process Gerber layers into wire coordinates then you need to set up your NJB file correctly so that the engine will do this.

There are three sections in the NJB file that must be setup correctly:

The LAYERS section must have one or more wire layers defined

The WIRES section must have one or more TIERS defined and may not have any wire entries.

The SETTINGS section must point to a least one file containing wire draws

Example - PBGA2

To illustrate how this works we are going to use the example PGBA2.zip that has 3 wire layers and two conductor layers.

The STACKUP Section

B_LAYERS
1    wb1   WIREBOND    0.025  gold   0x000000 0 0 0
2    air1  DIELECTRIC  0.000  air    0x000000 0 0 0
3    wb2   WIREBOND    0.025  gold   0x000000 0 0 0
4    air2  DIELECTRIC  0.000  air    0x000000 0 0 0
5    wb3   WIREBOND    0.025  gold   0x000000 0 0 0
6    air3  DIELECTRIC  0.000  air    0x000000 0 0 0
7    wb3b  WIREBOND    0.025  gold   0x000000 0 0 0
8    air4  DIELECTRIC  0.000  air    0x000000 0 0 0
9    M1    METAL       0.025  copper 0x000000 0 0 0
10   D5    DIELECTRIC  0.100  FR4    0x000000 0 0 0
11   M2    METAL       0.020  copper 0x000000 0 0 0
E_LAYERS

The thicknesses we have chosen are not necessarily important unless you are going to do an EM simulation.

The WIRE Section

If NETEX is going to generate your wire coordinates for you, then this section must contain the tier definitions but must not contain any wire entries.

The tier syntax:

TIER  name  stackup  diameter  metal_layer

PBGA Example

B_WIRES
TIER   wb1    1            0.025000     9
TIER   wb2    3            0.025000     9
TIER   wb3    5            0.025000     9
TIER   wb3b   5            0.025000     9
E_WIRES

Notice that the creator of the NJB file is responsible for assigning the metal layer that the wires connect to (in this case, M1=9)

The SETTINGS Section

If NETEX is going to generate your wire coordinates for you, then the settings section must include the pointers to the source of the wire data -- normally Gerber files.

The proper syntax is:

WIREBOND   stackup   file_type   path

For our PBGA2 example (running from a directory E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2 our SETTINGS section would include 3 lines:

B_SETTINGS
WIREBOND     1   GBR   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\WIRE1.GBR"
WIREBOND     3   GBR   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\WIRE2.GBR"
WIREBOND     5   GBR   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\WIRE3.GBR"
WIREBOND     7   GBR   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\WIRE3B.GBR"
E_SETTINGS

Assuming all three sections are properly constructed, the NETEX manager will detect these conditions and recognize that you wish it to open the files representing the wires, perform the sorting and generate the vias needed to connect to the metal and the metal traces representing the wires in the output.

The PBGA2 NJB File and Results

In order to illustrate this we will construct an NJB file and then run the PBGA2 data through the NETEX manager. Below you can see the NJB file:

B_LAYERS
1   wb1          WIREBOND    0.025000     Gold    0x00000000 0 0 0
2   air          DIELECTRIC  0.000000     Air     0x00000000 0 0 0
3   wb2          WIREBOND    0.025000     Gold    0x00000000 0 0 0
4   air2         DIELECTRIC  0.000000     Air     0x00000000 0 0 0
5   wb3          WIREBOND    0.025000     Gold    0x00000000 0 0 0
6   air3         DIELECTRIC  0.000000     Air     0x00000000 0 0 0
7   wb3b         WIREBOND    0.025000     Gold    0x00000000 0 0 0
8   air4         DIELECTRIC  0.000000     Air     0x00000000 0 0 0
9   M1           METAL       0.025000     Copper  0x00000000 0 0 0
10  D5           DIELECTRIC  0.000000     Air     0x00000000 0 0 0
11  M2           METAL       0.025000     Air     0x00000000 0 0 0
E_LAYERS

B_LAYER_INPUT
9   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\top.gbr"  normal
11  "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\btm.gbr"  normal
E_LAYER_INPUT


B_WIRES
TIER   wb1          1    0.025000     9
TIER   wb2          3    0.025000     9
TIER   wb3          5    0.025000     9
TIER   wb3b         7    0.025000     9
E_WIRES

B_DRILL
"E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\drill.gbr"  9  11
E_DRILL

B_VIASIZE
10.000000
E_VIASIZE

B_SETTINGS
WORKDIR          "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\working"
OUTPUTDIR        "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\output"
MAXPOINTS        2000
ARCRESOLUTION    12.000000
CHORDERROR       0.000000
SMOOTHING        0.010000
SLIVER           0.000000
POLYOUTPUT       CUTLINES
NODETEXTHEIGHT   1.000000
NODETEXTOFFSET   0
OUTPUTUNITS      SAME
SCALE            1.000000
STRINGMATCHING   DOS
PROXSMOOTHING    0.000000
OUTPUTFORMAT     GDSII
B_GDSOUT
MAXWIDTH 0.000000
E_GDSOUT
OUTPUTFILE       "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\output\wire_coord_example.gds"
WIREBOND         1   GBR   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\WIRE1.GBR"
WIREBOND         3   GBR   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\WIRE2.GBR"
WIREBOND         5   GBR   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\WIRE3.GBR"
WIREBOND         7   GBR   "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\WIRE3B.GBR"
E_SETTINGS

Command Line

In addition to the job file, we must create a correct command line to launch the netex-g manager. (breaks are not present but shown for clarity)

"C:\WCAD\NETEXG155A\netexgmgr.exe"
 "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\wire_example_job.njb"
  "E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\output\wire_coord_example.gds" 
   "-wdir:E:\cad_data[2]\netexg_ex\pbga2\working"
     -maxpts:2000 
       -arcres:12.000000 
         -arcsag:0.000000 
           -smoothing:0.010000 
             -outtype:gds_stream 
              -cutline
               -silent 
                -singledlg

Data

If you would like to test/duplicate these results, the PBGA Gerber files and job file and command line are included in the PBGA2_WIRE.zip file along with the resulting GDSII stream file.