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NEMI Recommendation Memo

Date: December 17, 2001
To: Industry Leaders for CAD Data Exchange
From: NEMI Data Exchange Convergence Project Leadership
Subject: Recommendation for CAD/CAM Data Convergence

Introduction

Since last January, NEMI member companies and others in our industry have been engaged in an effort to come up with a single mainstream standard for CAD/CAM data exchange. While that work is far from complete, we are nearing the end of an important phase of the program. Based on the results to date, we are putting forth the recommendation in this document for industry consideration and action. As always, we welcome your feedback on this work. We are particularly interested in your thoughts of how to proceed in a manner that keeps all critical nodes of the supply chain engaged in this process for the good of our industry. This document will summarize the work to date and formulate a standardization recommendation for input into the IPC. As an accredited standards body, we would look to the IPC to be the venue for the open industry consensus process for development of any resulting standard(s). In this next phase, IPC & NEMI member companies would focus on the significant challenges of industry adoption.

Background

The goals of this NEMI convergence effort remain unchanged:

1. Lower the industry-wide cost of design exchange through the consolidation of existing CAD/CAM exchange formats and standards to promote the development of software solutions built on a single, consensus-based exchange format.
2. Develop a technical recommendation for a CAD/CAM data exchange format that can be widely adopted in a timely manner. This single data exchange format will combine the strengths that IPC 2510 GenCAM and Valor ODB++ have to offer.
3. Create a strategy for building a single, consensus-based standard for the interchange of design, manufacturing, test, fixture and inspection information for printed circuit board fabrication and printed circuit assembly as exchanged between trading partners in the electronic interconnect industry. This project will consolidate the substantial body of work already within the IPC-2510, IPC-2578 and ODB++ exchange specifications. This project will use the IPC 2510 and Valor ODB++ specifications as the starting point. Regardless of whether GenCAM or ODB++ is used as the starting point, the standardized format will be located in the public domain and controlled by industry through the open standards process of IPC.
4. Encourage early adoption and implementation through tool development, partnerships with other consortia, and demonstrations. User support will also be solicited to help insure that solution provider investments are timely and of high return.

Summary of accomplishments - Convergence Technical Team (CTT):

This group is lead by Bill Honeycutt of Motorola and John Minchella of Celestica.

1. Initial work focused on mapping of existing capabilities of GenCAM and ODB++. This provided broader understanding of functionality by all involved.
2. In parallel, a user subgroup of the CTT generated a list of requirements that any future standard should support. This list covered PWB fabrication, PWB assembly, Test/Inspection, and other aspects of product realization process.
3. Several different approaches attempted to create an integrated starting point that would capture the "best of both".
4. Final approach involved "starting at each end" and working towards a common goal. The CTT team was organized into two groups - one that would use GenCAM as the base, the other that would use ODB as a base and build to a complete solution (as defined by user requirements). This resulted in the creation of two proposals/approaches to the standardization process.

Summary of accomplishments of Convergence Management Team (CMT):

This group is lead by Henry Jurgens of Celestica and Dana Korf of Sanmina.

1. Initial work focused on guidelines/scope for project.
2. Developed list of industry leaders in all key segments of supply chain.
3. Developed a decision process that would be basis for making recommendation.
4. Conducted 2 phases of industry feedback to proposals (solution providers first and then users).
5. Summarized/documented feedback and communicated this information (along with specific company responses). Note: this information is still available at: www.nemi.org
6. Conducted industry-voting process to be basis of recommendation.

Results of Industry feedback/voting

Results of industry feedback are available on NEMI web site. Results of voting process did not differ appreciably from feedback phase. Based on our decision process, we provided for weighting of votes based on size of company (as a rough indicator of industry influence). In the end, however, there was little difference in results of raw vote vs. weighted vote (note: large companies in each segment shown in bold in lists below). We also agreed that we would report the vote summaries by category (rather than individual votes). It is worth repeating here (as we did in the voting process) that the votes are cast for the proposals presented (alternate ways to achieve full user requirements) not for any existing implementation.

Market Segment	GenCAM Starting Point (raw vote)	ODB Starting Point (raw vote)	GenCAM Starting Point (weighted)	ODB Starting Point (weighted)
EMS	0	8	0	13
OEM	5	12	10	22
PWB fab.	0	8	0	13
Solution Prov.	8	5	10	7
Totals =>	13 (28%)	33 (72%)	20 (27%)	55 (73%)

The following EMS companies voted: Celestica, Flextronics, MSL, Plexus, SCI Systems, Sanmina, Solectron, and Xetel.

The following PWB fabricators voted: DDI, Photo Circuits, Merix, MEI, Protech, Toppan, Tyco, and Via Systems.

The following OEMs voted: Daimler-Chrysler, Delphi-Delco, Cisco, EMC, Fujitsu Network Communications, HP, IBM, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Lucent Technologies, Maxtor, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel Networks, Storage Tek, Sun, and Xerox (also received vote from Alcatel but it was not counted since voting had closed).

The following Solution Providers voted: Adiva, Agilent, Cadence, Frontline, Intercept, Mentor, Ohio Design Automation, Orbotech, Router Solutions, Technomatix-Unicam, Teradyne, Tibor-Darvis, and Valor.

The EMS and PWB fabricator segments were unanimous in their preference for ODB++(X) as the starting point. The OEM segment showed a solid majority (69%) for the same preference. While there is a clear preference expressed on the overall tally (73%), it is important to point out that the solution provider segment shows a preference (59% to 41%) for GenCAM as the starting point. We believe that this effort cannot be successful without strong participation of all four of the industry sectors identified. A clear challenge in moving ahead then, is our collective ability to gain participation and support from the solution providers. In the end, a standard can only be effective if both users and solution providers embrace it.

Recommendations

The following course of action is proposed as the results of this work:

1. A PIN form be submitted to IPC to formally request the beginning of a standards committee. The starting basis for this group would be the industry preferred proposal to achieve a converged standard.
2. Joint CMT/CTT meeting to discuss path forward and to request participation in the standards committee.
3. Active participation in the standards process by all companies that participated in the industry feedback and voting stages. This would help insure that all key segments are involved.
4. Development of initial industry communication vehicles. This is a critical step to help set the right tone and spirit for the work ahead. Ongoing communications will be handled by the NEMI convergence group (for industry adoption) and IPC (for any updates on standards progress).
5. Planning/execution of the next phase of NEMI convergence project to focus on the industry acceptance work and to help recruit the critical mass required for the IPC standards work.