Your PCB Fabrication Drawing Now Comes From the Design
Gerber files tell a board shop where the copper goes. They do not tell the shop what the board is: the stackup, the finished thickness, the drill sizes, and where the board is rigid and where it bends. That information goes in the fabrication drawing and its fabrication notes.
Now Flux makes the fabrication drawing for you. Every Gerber and ODB++ download from Flux includes fabrication-drawing.pdf. Flux makes it from the design itself, so the drawing and the board always agree.
The drawing at the end of every project
On most teams, an engineer draws the fabrication drawing by hand after the layout is done. The engineer copies each layer thickness from the stackup, counts the holes for each drill size, and draws the board outline again in a drawing tool. That is a day of work for a simple board, and more for a rigid-flex board.
Then the design changes. A via size changes, or the stackup gets one more layer, and the drawing is out of date. The shop finds the difference and sends an engineering question. The order waits until the answer comes back.
In Flux, the drawing is part of the export. When the design changes, the next download has a new drawing with the new numbers.
What is in the drawing
- Assembly: the top and bottom of the board, each reference designator, a pin 1 marker for each part, and a notes box with the fabrication notes.
- Drill: the board with one symbol for each drill tool, and a drill legend with the diameter in mm and mil, the hole type, the plating, and the quantity.
- Stackup: each layer with its material and its thickness in mm and mil, and the finished thickness of the board.
- Regions: where the board is rigid, flexible, or stiffened, with the dimensions and the finished thickness of each region.
- Layers: each copper layer on its own panel, in the layer colors of the Flux editor.
- Realistic: 3D pictures of the top and the bottom of the board.
Rigid-flex boards also get one page for each coverlay, stiffener, and flex edge glue layer. Each of these pages shades the area of that layer and names its Gerber file. Each page has a title block with the project, the page name, the sheet number, the units, and the date.
One board, from design to drawing
This OBD-II to UART development board is a 4-layer board. Its fabrication drawing has six pages. The Assembly page shows the parts on the top side and the notes for the shop.
The Drill page counts 217 holes in five drill tools, from 0.25 mm vias to 3.20 mm component holes. Each tool has its own symbol on the board, so the shop can find each hole in the legend.
The Stackup page lists all 13 layers of the board, from silkscreen to silkscreen, and gives a finished thickness of 1.6112 mm (63.43 mil). The Layers page shows each of the four copper layers on its own panel.
Rigid-flex boards, region by region
A rigid-flex board has more than one stackup, and the shop must know where each one starts and stops. The Regions page shows each region on the board with its dimensions and its finished thickness.
On this 6-layer rigid-flex board, the rigid section is 1.560 mm thick, the flex arm and the flex tail are 0.220 mm, and the stiffened tip is 0.420 mm. The Stackup page gives one layer table for each region, with the polyimide, the coverlay, and the stiffener in their own colors.
The same numbers for the enclosure
The board shop is not the only team that reads the fabrication drawing. The mechanical design uses the same numbers: the finished thickness sets the board slot, the region sizes set the clearance for the flex arm, and the stiffener sets the height under a connector.
In Flux, the enclosure and the board are in the same project. Flux designs the enclosure around the board, and the fabrication drawing comes from that same board. The shop, the enclosure, and the board use one set of numbers.
Before and with Flux
| Before | With Flux | |
|---|---|---|
| Fabrication drawing | Drawn by hand after the layout | In each Gerber and ODB++ download |
| Stackup table | Copied from the stackup, layer by layer | Made from the stackup in the design |
| Drill legend | Holes counted by hand | Each tool, size, and quantity from the design |
| Rigid-flex regions | Outlines drawn again in a drawing tool | Each region with its size and finished thickness |
| Design change | The drawing is out of date | The next download has a new drawing |
Ask Flux
- "Export the Gerber files for this board."
- "Export this board as ODB++ for the board shop."
- "Change the stackup to 6 layers with a 1.6 mm finished thickness, then export the Gerber files again."
- "Add a 0.2 mm stiffener under the connector at the end of the flex tail."
- "Design an enclosure with a slot that fits the finished thickness of this board."
Try it
Open a board in Flux and ask Flux for its Gerber or ODB++ files. Open fabrication-drawing.pdf in the download. See Mechanical drawings and exports for each page of the drawing.
FAQs
A PCB fabrication drawing tells the board shop how to make the bare board. It gives the stackup, the finished thickness, the drill sizes, and the board regions. The Gerber files give the copper and the outline. The drawing gives the rest.
Fabrication notes are the short instructions for the board shop on the drawing, for example the units and what the finished thickness includes. In Flux, the notes are in the notes box on the Assembly page.
Each Gerber and ODB++ download from Flux includes fabrication-drawing.pdf. This is true when you download the files from the export menu and when you ask Flux for them.
Yes. The Regions and Stackup pages show each rigid, flex, and stiffened region. The drawing also has one page for each coverlay, stiffener, and flex edge glue layer.
Yes. Flux makes the drawing from the design at each export. Each new download has the current stackup, drills, and regions.
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