Revision History for NETEX-G AWR

NETEXG-AWR V1.90 11/12/2014

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The three installation files are not password protected anymore.

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

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)

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

Added support to the IPC2581 format.

Removed ACIS Output.

Added support to barcode in the ODB++ importer.

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/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-O (AWR) 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.

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 V1.61 1/10/2011

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

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.

Version V1.57 09/09/2010

Added thread number control in the Advanced Preferences dialog.

Unit scaling had been fixed for ASCII and ANF output.

Version 1.56 08/03/10

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 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.

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

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

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

Version 1.54 05/20/10

The first release of NETEX-O for AWR.