Can standard Gerber still be used to order PCBs?

As you can read from Ucamco”s announcement, Standard Gerber (RS-274D) is declared obsolete as input format for their Computer Aided Manufacturing tools for PCB production.

Eurocircuits has for a long time promoted the use of Extended Gerber (RS-274X) for communicating PCB designs as described in our BLOGs:

It”s safer, faster and fully compatible with our PCB Visualizer tools.  PCB Visualizer cannot process Standard Gerber files as they are incomplete, lacking the built-in shape definition tables etc…

We therefore support Ucamco”s decision to declare the Standard Gerber (RS-274D) format obsolete.

=> Yes, you still can use Standard Gerber (RS-274D) but we STRONGLY recommend you to use Extended Gerber (RS-274X) instead.

If you have any questions on outputting Extended Gerber, please contact us via our Chat service or email us at

euro@eurocircuits.com

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.  If you need boards made from old files which are only available in Standard Gerber, please contact us on a case by case basis.

We recommend you to also read Ucamco”s announcement in this BLOG.

Open Letter to the Gerber User Community

Please use Extended Gerber for all your operations.
Standard Gerber is technically obsolete.  If you are still using it, you are putting your business and that of your clients and business partners at a useless risk, without benefit.

As the developer and custodian of the Gerber format, Ucamco hereby wishes to communicate the following important information about Standard Gerber.

Standard Gerber is now technologically obsolete.

  • Despite its name, Standard Gerber is not a defined standard for PCB data transfer:  Units and aperture definitions, rather than being governed by a recognisable standard, are in an informal document, the interpretation of which is unavoidably subjective. As a result, Standard Gerber files cannot be machine-read in a standardized, reliable way.
  • Standard Gerber requires aperture painting and copper pours, both of which create manual work in CAM, adding cost, delay and risk to the PCB manufacturing process.
  • Standard Gerber does not support attributes.

Extended Gerber files ARE machine readable, they do not require painting, and they do support attributes. Virtually all software read Extended Gerber and many new implementations no longer support Standard Gerber. There is not a single good reason left to use Standard Gerber. Using of Standard rather than Extended Gerber is a self-inflicted competitive disadvantage.

Extended Gerber fully supersedes Standard Gerber. Extended Gerber is the current Gerber format. Standard Gerber files therefore do not comply with the Gerber specification.

Ucamco”s position regarding the Gerber format is therefore as follows:  Any party that chooses Standard rather than fully standardized Extended Gerber is responsible for any issues that might arise as a result of its use.

Thank you.

Karel Tavernier
Managing Director
Ucamco

Read the full article – with detailed motivation – in pdf format