Design and manufacturing integration through EDIF

The need to improve the quality of the information that flows from design to manufacture in the domain of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and printed circuit assemblies (PCAs) has long been recognized. This paper describes an Electronic Design Interchange Format standard, EDIF Version 4 0 0, that has been designed to improve this process. The standard is underpinned by a formal description from which the interchange format was derived. Industry-led projects in the USA and Europe have shown that the format is able to offer major improvements in the design-to-manufacture flow. The paper takes a look at some of the issues that affect the success of the design-to-manufacture flow. It then introduces EDIF Version 4 0 0, a standard defined using formal specification techniques and deliberately constructed to ensure that design transfers in EDIF are coherent and complete. The use of EDIF in helping to integrate the design and manufacturing processes is noted.