PCB FILES FORMAT
Printed circuit boards are designed on a specialized electronic design automation (EDA) or a computer-added design (CAD) system. The software has its own PCB data or common data for manufacturing FR4, Flex, Flex-Rigid and Metal core circuit boards.
What Are Gerber Files?
The mostly common and widely accepted for PCB fabrication is Gerber files. The Gerber format is an open ASCII vector format for 2D binary images. There are 2 major generations of Gerber format:
- Extended Gerber, or RS-274X. This is the current Gerber format. In 2014, the graphics format was extended with the option to add meta-information to the graphics objects. Files with attributes are called X2 files; those without attributes are X1 files.
- Standard Gerber, or RS-274-D. This obsolete was revoked.
The standard file extension is .GBR though other extensions are also used.
Gerber Files Extension:
| File Extension | Description |
| .APR | Aperture File |
| .APT | Aperture File |
| .EXTREP | Extension Report of Gerber Files |
| .REP | Report of Individual Layer Used Aperture List |
| .RUL | DRC Rules |
| .GKO | Kepp Out Layer |
| .GTO | Top Overlay |
| .GBO | Bottom Overlay |
| .GPT | Pad Master Top |
| .GPB | Pad Master Bottom |
| .GTS | Top Solder |
| .GBS | Bottom Solder |
| .GTL | Top Layer |
| .GBL | Bottom Layer |
| .GTP | Top Paste |
| .GBP | Bottom Paste |
| .G1, .G2, etc. | Mid-layer 1, 2, etc. |
| .GP1, .GP2, etc. | Internal Plane Layer 1, 2, etc. |
| .P01, .P02, etc. | Gerber Panels |
| .GM1, .GM2, etc. | Mechanical Layer 1, 2, etc. |
| .GD1, .GD2, etc. | Drill Drawing |
| .GG1, .GG2, etc. | Drill Guide |
| .DRL | Drill Data |
| .TXT | Drill Position |
| .DRR | Drill Tool Size |
| .LDP | Layer Pairs Export File for PCB |
PCB File Format Support:
| Software | Accepted formats |
| Altium Designer | *.PCB/PCBDOC |
| Eagle | *.BRD |
| ODB++ | *.zip/tgz |
*We support these top paid layout software, and other unpaid ones are not listed here.
PCB Design Software Support:
| Software | Company |
| Altium Designer | Protel |
| PADS | Mentor Graphics |
| OrCAD | Cadence |
| Allegro | Cadence |
| Eagle | CadSoft |
No matter which PCB layout software you use, and no matter which PCB file format you adopt, all PCB files provided to the PCB manufacturer will be converted to Gerber format for printed circuit boards fabrication. All PCB manufacturers prefer Gerber files provided by customers, but we support original PCB files.
