Nodes

The node section is used to assign nodes to physical nets. The Gerber files themselves have no concept of a node (i.e. a starting and ending point of a net.) The designer may have a way to define the beginning and ending of a net - for example in an IC package the beginning point may be defined at the center of the bondpad and the ending point at the center of the ball pad.

This section is optional. If you don't need to assign any nodes then it need not appear.

It is possible (but may not be useful) to have many node points on a single net.

In the NJB file the node section looks as follows:

B_NODES
BF1     568.0 678.9  2
A5      309.4 556.8  4
E_NODES

Column Definitions

Column 1 - node name. limit it to 32 characters and do not use spaces or special characters other than: ( ) - _ [ ]

Column 2,3 - coordinates. enter an X,Y point that identifies the node point.. This must be in the units that match your input Gerber files (i.e. inches or mm)

Column 3 - stackup layer. enter the stackup position where the program should place the node. If it does not fall on conductor then it will not be placed.

The node section must begin with b_nodes and end with e_nodes.

Notes

Nodes are not geometric objects. The are labels associated with an X,Y coordinate and a stackup position.

They are not obtained from Gerber or drill data but rather from external sources such as an IPC-D-356 file or an AIF file. (NETEX-G has support routines that read these two file formats and produce node data.)

Node Output may appear as text in some file formats (GDSII and DXF) and as port data in other formats or may not appear in the output at all in some formats (such as ACIS).