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Revision History for NETEX-G AWR

NETEXG-AWR V1.90 11/12/2014

Upgrade to Netex-G 1.90

All improvements from the standard Netex-G are now implemented in the AWR version.

Added ACS Softkey licensing

This new scheme will require CST and Sonnet packages to use libraries and a header file that are not included. These items will be sent directly to the customer when needed.


NETEXG-AWR V1.78c 10/10/2013

Metal Extent Computation

Any Gerber file name having more than one '.' character was problematic in determining the correct file name containing extent information.
Metal extent computation is done when there is any number of reversals or when dielectric profiles are created in 3Di output. When this fails, Netex-G exits. This has now been fixed.

Title Bar

Changed the title bar of main dialog box to read Netex-G (AWR)


Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.78b 9/23/2013

ASCII to 3Di properly includes material type

Integrated latest 3Di formatter (asc23di.exe). This was done to properly pass material types.

Installation changes

The three installation files are not password protected anymore.


Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.78a 9/13/2013

ODB++ Extraction of Stackup thickness

This information comes from attributes specified for each metal layer and the corresponding dielectric layer below it. Metal thickness is derived from .copper_weight attribute and dielectric from layer_dielectric attribute. The thickness values that are not found or less than a certain value are set to a default value.

The default values and minimum acceptable values are shown below:
Attribute Min. value Default_value
.copper_weight 1 mil 1.0
.layer_dielectric 10 mils 5x (Thickness from .copper_weight)

Default Material

This version assigns default material when unnamed one is encountered.

Stackup_type Material

Soldermask / Polyamide
Metal / Copper
Dielectric / FR4
Wbond / Copper


Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.78 9/3/2013

Smoothing value

This version makes sure that smoothing is at least 5 times smaller than any specified nonzero chord error.

Incremental execution

Incremental execution has now been fixed. This problem was introduced in v1.76b (05/30/2013). This version, which included the ascecfilt.exe.manifest file instead of embedding it in the ascexfilt.exe file, failed to launch ascexfilt.exe during incremental runs as a consequence. This has now been handled.


Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.76c 7/10/2013

Empty nets

Empty nets are filtered out. This was done to accommodate 3Di output of empty net pin entries in TABLE NET_PINS section. The only empty entries are non empty nets which have no pins.

Solder Mask layers

ODB++ and IPC2581 importers were revised to restrict solder mask layers to use only one top and one bottom layer, each found to be adjacent to the metal stack up layers. All other layers tagged as solder mask are re-tagged as solmsk and are initially set to Layer Type: Pass Thru) in "Other Files" dialog launched from "Other Files..." button in main dialog.


Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.76a 5/28/2013

Component reference designators

Component reference designators starting with a '#' character were not supported correctly. This has now been fixed.


Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.76 4/28/2013

ODB++ and IPC2581 Updates

An issue with mirrored bottom components was corrected. Before pin geometries and component outlines were presented incorrectly in 3DVU.

Pin geometries whose origin did not coincide with 0,0 were displayed incorrectly. This has been fixed.

In order for a layer to be considered as a candidate stackup layer, it must be either be of context Board or of type signal between top or bottom component layers. This allows wirebond layers to be added to the stackup.


Netex-G/Netex-ODB V1.72 05/09/2012

IPC2581 Support

Added support to the IPC2581 format.

ACIS Output

Removed ACIS Output.

Barcode support

Added support to barcode in the ODB++ importer.


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

Net name check

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

Board Name

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.

Color Set

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

Back Drill

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

String Search

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


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

Incremental run

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.

Component Output

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

  • GDS Ascii with Vias
  • ANSOFT
  • 3Di
  • ADFI

  • This has now been fixed so that:
  • ADS always outputs butting edge polygons for ADFI and Leonov for 3Di
  • AWR always outputs Leonov polygons for 3Di
  • Standard preserves allowable polygon format

  • Netex-O (AWR) V1.64 2/16/2011

    Speed Improvements

    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

    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.


    Netex-G V1.63 1/24/2011

    Boundary to Path

    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

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


    Netex-G V1.61 1/10/2011

    ACE output Added

    ACE output option has been added as a check box in the "Output Settings" dialog box launched from the "Output" button in the Netex-G shell.. It works with boundary to path conversions by reducing the line to width ratio allowing for the creation of more paths from boundaries.


    Netex-G V1.60 12/16/2010

    RS274X mass parameters

    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++ components import

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

    Other enhancements

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


    Version V1.57 09/09/2010

    Thread control

    Added thread number control in the Advanced Preferences dialog.

    Unit Scaling problem

    Unit scaling had been fixed for ASCII and ANF output.

    Other enhancements

  • Preference "Output Units" state is saved for any ODB++ imports.
  • Layer section thickness is scaled in ANF.
  • Overflow problems from unit scaling have been addressed with grid reduction for UM and MIL output units and changing integer computations to floating point..
  • ODB++ import components have been updated to v1.80.
  • 3DI engine has been updated addressing rotation errors and missing metal in pad stacks.

  • Version 1.56 08/03/10

    Component Placement with Rotation

    This version modified the component output to support arbitrary component rotations. An example is shown below:

    COMP
    REFDES S0401
    NAME MURATA_SWD_CONN
    XY 5.993464 1.224173
    ROTATION 0.0
    MIRROR NO
    comp_mount_type 1
    PINS 6
    PIN 1 6.036614 1.267323 1056
    PIN 2 5.979544 1.293770 3
    PIN 3 5.923867 1.238092 3
    PIN 4 5.950314 1.181023 1040
    PIN 5 6.007383 1.154576 3
    PIN 6 6.063061 1.210253 3
    

    Version 1.55 07/01/10

    Component Pin Names

    Component pin names are filtered to conform to AWR's request. Basically, component pins when placed can be named either with just the pin label (i.e. 1,2,3 ...) or sometimes the ref designator is incorporated into the pin name i.e. R27-1, R27-2 ...

    The problem arose when generating names referencing these pins -- our own programs pre-pended the ref designator to generate a unique pin name i.e. pin 1 on R27 becomes R27.1. However if the pin name is R27-1 then we generated R27.R27-1 which cause problems for the AWR interpreter.

    Redundant Polygons output for Proximity Nets

    Under some conditions, the polygons generated for the proximity net were repeated more than once. This has been fixed.

    Progress Bar Updated

    A separate progress bar is initiated for the GDS ASCII extraction filter phase.

    Net Name GUI

    List of net names is filled more quickly in extraction dialog.



    Version 1.54 05/20/10

    Intial Release

    The first release of NETEX-O for AWR.