Different ways to output your board design and associated challenges

Once your printed circuit board is designed, the next step is to manufacture the board for assembly. For this, the designer needs to create a set of files to send to the fabrication house. There are various file options which you can output from a PCB Design tool.

There are various files required by the fabrication house to manufacture a board. Designers typically output files such as Gerber files and NC Drill files for manufacturing the board. They also create assembly files for the pick-and-place machines. At times, designers opt to provide printouts of the fabrication notes and drill legends for documentation purposes. STEP files are also often required, as they help to see the real-time placement of the components. Similarly, for bare-board testing and in-circuit testing, designers generate a testprep report.  

Besides the above output files, there are requirements for data transfer between the ECAD and MCAD tools; here, the PCB designer can opt for DXF, IDF, ODB++, or IDX output.  

Given the many output file options for PCB designs, we would like to hear from you about the method you use the most and the recommendations you would give to a new or existing user when generating the output files such that they come out right the first time.  

1. Are there any checks which we should always make before generating Gerber files?
2. Do you create printouts to check the fabrication notes and drill legends, or do you use tools like Documentation Editor?
3. Which output format do you use the most - DXF, IDF or IDX?
4. Which 3D models do you prefer - STEP, Solidworks, Creo, or any other?
5. How do you output your test points?

Comment below to share any best practices or tips with the community!