Dumb data won’t die. And the blame rests squarely on users who resist upgrading to formats that are designed with today’s boards and manufacturing methods in mind.

That’s the message from the PCEA Portland (OR) Chapter at its meeting in late October. The sentiment was shared across a spectrum of users, from designers to fabricators to assemblers, including the host, Axiom Electronics.

We know the issues: Too often, fabricators and assemblers receive conflicting duplicate and erroneous design data files. More often than not the culprit is Gerber-based data packages, which almost always require modification prior to fabrication or assembly.

So while persistent errors from design to manufacturing are often due to manual entry miscues or otherwise obvious omissions such as a missing solder mask layer or discrepancies within the netlist, the industry by and large continues to put up with the pain instead of migrating to a new format.

SAINT-CLOUD, FRANCE – Asteelflash opened a $19 million production facility near Wrocław, Poland, enhancing its box-build and high-level assembly capabilities in the automotive and industrial sectors.

TEMPE, AZ – Benchmark Electronic's third quarter revenue of $658 million represented a decline of 8.6% from the same quarter in 2023.

CHENNAI, INDIA – Syrma SGS Technology is targeting $1 billion in revenue by 2027 and is evaluating manufacturing opportunities for semiconductors and PCBs, according to a company official.