JPH05101143A - Method for generating artwork data for production of printed board - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To decrease an amount of artwork data corresponding to an area pattern and to shorten the generation time even if an area pattern of complicate shape is included in the pattern of the designed printed board. CONSTITUTION:An artwork data generation part 2 which inputs designed printed board pattern information is provided. A lead aperture with the maximum line width is selected 3 first, an area which can be drawn is cut 4 from respective area patterns of the pattern information, and artwork data as to the cut area is generated 5. Further, an area which can be drawn is cut with an aperture having the next large line width from the remaining area of the area cut from each area pattern of the pattern information to generate artwork data having smaller line width successively.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a computer-based printed board design support system (CAD) manufacturing interface, and more particularly to a method for creating artwork data for printed board manufacturing.

A printed circuit board is roughly specified as follows.
After determining the function, circuit design, and mounting design, the required data (artwork data, drilling data, test data) is sent to the printed board manufacturing factory, and the printed board is made at the factory based on the data.

In this procedure, a portion for creating data for a printed board manufacturing factory after mounting design is called a manufacturing interface, and the artwork data is for generating a wiring pattern, a land pattern, etc. on the printed board. Means the data for making a film. This artwork data has a circular or rectangular shape and is composed of aperture codes of various sizes and their scanning information. The aperture code is a code that defines the size of the slit (aperture) that defines the width of the light that is irradiated when the film is exposed.

Since the scanning information is used when a small aperture is used so that a complicated shape of a designed pattern can be faithfully drawn when creating this artwork data, the amount of data increases and a film is created. Was taking a long time.

[0005]

2. Description of the Related Art Although various types of printed boards are manufactured, multilayer printed boards are widely used at present. In a multilayer printed board, individual wiring patterns such as a signal line, a ground, a power supply, and other signal lines are printed on the front surface layer, the back surface layer, and a plurality of intermediate layers. In order to create these printed wirings, a printed wiring pattern is prepared for each layer, but to create one layer of printed wiring, a different pattern (for example, a pattern for forming a resist layer) for each processing step is prepared. Etc.) are designed. These patterns are designed by the printed board design support system (CAD), and the artwork data for manufacturing is generated based on the designed data. At the manufacturing plant, a mask film is created using the artwork data, and a printed board is manufactured using the created film.

FIG. 5 shows an explanatory view of a conventional example. A. of FIG.
An example of a pattern designed by CAD is shown in FIG. In this example, a region having a relatively large area (this is referred to as a region pattern) is included, and such a region pattern is generally used in a pattern for forming a ground layer, a power supply layer, a resist layer, etc. To be done.

Areas 51, 52 and 53 are shaded portions on the printed board 50. A. obtained by design Artwork data for manufacturing a printed board is generated from the pattern shown in FIG. In this case, a process of converting each pattern into an aperture code which is decoded by the exposure device is performed. Among these aperture codes, there are a code for irradiating a spot for drawing a land, and a code for drawing a pattern or character data other than the land by scanning in the X and Y directions while exposing. Here, the latter aperture code for scanning in the X and Y directions is referred to as a read aperture.

Here, a conventional aperture code generation method using the read aperture will be described. In the conventional artwork generation system, the area patterns 51 to 53 existing on the printed board 50 are decomposed into scanning of the area pattern filling lead aperture. There are several types of aperture widths (slit widths) from small width to large width, but the fill aperture for filling is
A. As shown in Fig. 3, a small lead aperture is used so that a complex polygon (when the pattern is cut out diagonally as well as horizontal and vertical straight lines) can be drawn. The reason is that if a wide read aperture is used, diagonal lines and fine patterns cannot be drawn.

FIG. 5B. Shows an example of a small width as the read aperture. In this case, the read aperture is B.
Has a line width as shown enlarged on the right side of the line, and the line is filled by the line width by scanning from the top of the right end or the left end to the left (or right) position (line). The process of moving to the center position (1/2 of the width) and then scanning from bottom to top is repeated. The artwork data in this case is composed of the type of read aperture used and the change point of the read aperture during scanning (start and end X and Y coordinates of each straight line).

Referring to FIG. Using the narrow read aperture shown in FIG. When each area having the pattern shown in FIG. Each area is filled as shown in FIG. C. As shown in, in order not to leave unpainted areas in the area where the pattern is slanted,
The lead aperture must be small.

After that, the artwork data created by the manufacturing interface is rendered by the factory by the following method. When drawing with a photo plotter, it is drawn on the film as it is.

When drawing with a laser plotter, it is converted into laser data and drawn on a film.

[0013]

As described above, when the designed printed board pattern has a large number of area patterns, or when the area pattern is large and complicated, the lead drawing line width is small, so scanning is performed. Since the number of scans is large, the scan data of the read aperture increases. As a result, the time of artwork data generation time, artwork data transfer time to the factory (when data transmission is used), data conversion time (when laser plotter is used), film drawing time, etc. There was a problem that man-hours increased. Further, there is a problem that the capacity of the medium required for storing data also increases due to the increase in the amount of data.

According to the present invention, even when the designed printed board pattern includes an area pattern having a complicated shape,
An object of the present invention is to provide a method for creating artwork data for printed board manufacture, which can reduce the amount of artwork data corresponding to the area pattern and shorten the creation time.

[0015]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the principle of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is printed board pattern information, 2 is an artwork data creation section, 3 is a read aperture selecting means for first selecting the maximum size of the read aperture, and subsequently selecting the smaller size, and 4 is for drawing. Area cutting means, 5 is artwork data generating means,
6 is a remaining area detecting means, and 7 is artwork data output.

The present invention reduces artwork data by automatically selecting and using the lead line width so that the amount of data is optimized depending on the shape of the area pattern.

[0017]

The printed board pattern information 1 obtained by the printed board design is input to the artwork data creation section 2. In the artwork data creation section 2, first, the lead aperture selecting means 3 selects the lead aperture having the maximum lead line width, and the next drawable area cutting means 4 is selected.
A drawable area is cut out in the target area pattern by the read aperture selected in. Next, artwork data (decomposed artwork data) is generated for the cut area.

Then, the remaining area detecting means 6 extracts the remaining area from the original area pattern, excluding the area cut out by the drawing of the read aperture. With respect to this remaining area, the read aperture selecting means 3 selects the read aperture with the next larger line width, and the drawable area cutting means 4 draws and cuts the area.

With this, the artwork data (decomposed artwork data) is generated by the artwork data generating means 5 for the cut-out area. Hereinafter, the same operation is performed while the line width of the read aperture is gradually reduced until the remaining area is exhausted. As a result, the decomposed artwork data for each aperture having a smaller line width is obtained as the artwork data output 7 from the aperture having the maximum line width.

[0020]

FIG. 2 is a hardware block diagram of an information processing apparatus in which the present invention is implemented, FIG. 3 is a flowchart of the embodiment, and FIG. 4 is a concrete example of artwork data creation.

In FIG. 2, the processing device 20 includes a CPU
(Central processing unit) 21, a memory 22, and a file input / output control device 23.
Reference numeral 3 is connected to a large number of files 24-27, accesses necessary files, and controls data transfer between the memory 22 and each file.

The program file 24 stores the program, and the program is loaded into the processing device 20.
Reference numeral 25 is a pattern file in which the pattern of the printed board whose design is completed by the printed board design support system (CAD) is registered. Reference numeral 26 is a read aperture definition file in which all read apertures (line width, etc.) are defined, and 27 is an artwork data file in which created artwork data is stored.

FIG. 3 shows a processing flow executed in the processing device 20 of FIG. The process flow of the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 will be described with reference to a specific example of artwork data creation shown in FIG. In FIG. Indicates each region cut by the aperture with the maximum line width, B.
Shows various types of apertures, (a) shows a large line width, (b) shows a smaller line width, and (c) shows an aperture with a smaller line width. C. Represents each region cut out by each aperture.

First, one of the plurality of apertures has a diameter of 1
The largest aperture is selected (30 in FIG. 3), the area pattern is focused on, for example, the x direction, and the line pattern is divided into line segments having the same width as the aperture (31 in FIG. 3). Next, each line segment can be cut as a rectangle, and the y direction is maximized (32 in FIG. 3).
It should be noted that this cutting produces corresponding artwork data (consisting of the used aperture and each coordinate information representing the scanned path).

In the example of FIG. A plurality of area patterns 41 to 43 are provided in the printed board 40 as shown in FIG. 4, and each area pattern has an aperture having the maximum line width as shown in FIG. The result of selecting the aperture shown in (a) of FIG. Corresponds to the shaded area. This scanning of the read aperture covers a wide area of the area pattern.

After cutting with the maximum line width in step 32 of FIG. 3, it is judged whether or not an uncut area remains (33 in FIG. 3), and if there is a remaining area,
Next, the smaller aperture is selected (34 in FIG. 3), and the processes in steps 31 to 33 are performed, and at this time, the artwork data corresponding to the cut scan using each aperture is generated. If it is determined in step 33 that no uncut area remains, the process ends.

In the example of FIG. The area cut out by the maximum aperture is
Most of the edges of 3 are parallel to the x and y directions,
Since an area having an oblique line or a complicated shape (polygon) remains, the area B.1 in FIG. By the apertures of smaller line widths shown in (b) and (c), the cutting is sequentially performed by the processing of steps 34, 31, 32 and 33 in FIG. As a result, C.I. As shown in (3), each area pattern is cut out to generate artwork data.

As the artwork data, for example, a Gerber code, which is a code widely used in describing the artwork, is used. An example is shown below. G54D11 * G01X2000Y4000D02 * G01Y8000D01 * X700 * Y-8000 ・
.. The meaning of each code in this is as follows. `` G54D1
"1" selects aperture D11. `` G01X2000Y
4000D02 ”is 2000, Y in the X direction with the shutter closed.
Move 4000 in the direction. "G01Y8000D01" opens the shutter (that is, moves 8000 in the Y direction while exposing).
“X700” opens the shutter and moves 700 in the X direction.
“Y-8000” moves -8000 in the Y direction by opening the shutter.

Such artwork data is sent to the manufacturing department as it is and used as data for manufacturing a printed board, and a film for manufacturing a printed board is manufactured.

[0030]

According to the present invention, even if there is a large and complicated area pattern on the printed board, the area is cut off in order from the lead aperture having a large line width, so that the artwork data can be greatly expanded. Can be reduced.

As a result, the man-hours from artwork data generation to plotting by the plotter can be greatly reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle configuration diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of an information processing device in which the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an example.

FIG. 4 is a specific example of creating artwork data.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 printed board pattern information 2 artwork data creation unit 3 lead aperture selection means 4 drawable area cutting means 5 artwork data generation means 6 remaining area detection means 7 artwork data output

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An artwork data creation method for producing artwork data from a design pattern of a printed board, which comprises an artwork data creation unit for inputting designed board pattern information. The creating unit first selects a read aperture having the maximum line width, cuts a drawable area from each area pattern of the pattern information, creates artwork data for the cut area, and creates each area pattern of the pattern information. From the remaining area of the cut area, a drawable area is cut by an aperture having a line width next to the maximum width, and artwork data having a smaller line width is sequentially created. Work data creation method.