Free Gerber viewers: helping or hurting our industry? One expert's opinion on the misuse of free Gerber viewers.

RECENTLY I HAD some discussions with a former PCB fabrication client who is now in the assembly world. As we reminisced about the "golden days" of PCB fabrication, we came to the subject of whether free Gerber viewers help or hurt our industry. I warned him my soapbox would definitely come out if the conversation continued. I have to say that free Gerber viewers are most definitely hurting our industry. Many end-users disagree, and there might even be some vendors who would disagree as well. So, why would I say this? I feel it boils down to perceptions and expectations left in the minds of the many end-users in both PCB design and fabrication by the free Gerber viewer concept.

Let's first look at how the free Gerber viewer concept started. It was originally a marketing vehicle that some vendors chose as a means for getting their product out in front of customers hoping these users would be eager to upgrade to higher-level products when they ran across a problem that a free viewer couldn't solve. I tend to doubt the approach really helped these vendors attract more customers than their competitors.

Today our industry is quite different from the days when free Gerber viewers were first introduced. It is a mature "replacement market" from a sales perspective. The customer's expectation is that all companies should offer free viewers. The perception is that because a Gerber viewer can be acquired for free, Gerber verification is now somehow less important. Even those users who are interested in upgrading to higher-level products often base their price expectations upon the fact that they started using a free viewer, and thus have little interest in paying for more advanced capabilities.

Gerber data is still the format used to produce the majority of boards in the world today. Because of this, the need to verify Gerber data is no less important now than it was 10 or 15 years ago. Sure, our fabrication processes have improved and the CAD system design rules checking is better, but it still only takes one bad run of boards to cost an OEM tens of thousands of dollars in scrap--even more if the problem doesn't get caught until after the boards are assembled.

Prior to the industry decline in 2000, designers seemed to have a good handle on Gerber verification. The appropriate tools and processes were in place and many designers were making the effort to ensure that their data was as accurate as possible before sending the job out for production. Complaints from board fabricators about bad Gerber data also seemed to be on a decline, which would corroborate this statement. But a new wrinkle occurred after 2000 when everyone began looking for ways to cut costs. Those that hadn't already implemented Gerber verification processes put any plans to do so on hold. Cost cutting was at some of the highest levels we have ever seen. As a result, the industry appeared to slip back into the mode it was in during the early 90s, before Gerber verification had fully taken off, where virtually the only software available were Gerber viewers. To keep costs down, many feel they can get by with only viewing their Gerber data again. Since most Gerber viewers are free today, it is easy for users to gravitate towards them. I have been hearing more complaints about bad Gerber data again. Coincidence? Not likely. What this all comes down to is Gerber data cannot be verified and validated using just a viewer!

The free Gerber viewer concept was an interesting marketing tool but, in my opinion, free Gerber viewers are now leading us backwards instead of forwards. In the days prior to free Gerber Viewers becoming so popular, users were eager to push ahead and validate their Gerber data in an effort to reduce turn-around times, improve quality and ultimately get product to market faster. This same drive exposed the fact that Gerber data alone was no longer an efficient means for transferring data to manufacturing and thus helped to further push for the development of intelligent data transfer initiatives. Don't get me wrong; the data transfer initiative certainly is not dead as many continue to show interest. But there are a lot more companies and end-users in our industry who should be showing interest, and they are not because it is simply too easy to just keep doing it the way they have always done it.

People tend to take the path of least resistance. As long as free Gerber viewers continue to be available, our industry will continue to be hung-up on Gerber data as the means for transferring data to manufacturing. With the increasing technical complexity of our products, we should all be working towards tighter integration between design and manufacturing tools, and further improving the flow of intelligent information between these worlds. Remember, nothing in this world ever comes for free. Behind every product, there is time and effort expended to produce that product. That time and effort always has value associated with it. Giving away basic Gerber viewer software just undermines the efforts of the industry at large to improve itself.

JEFF MILLER is vice president, sales and marketing at Wise Software. He can be reached at [e-mail].