Allegro PCB Design Tutorial


Gerber Files


Finally we are ready to generate artwork or gerber files that we can submit to PCB vendors.

Go to Display -> Visibility on the PCB Editor Main Window. Select Global Visibility to All Invisible, an option on the top-right of the pop-up window that opens. Then select Group -> Geometry on the top-left, and turn on Board Geometry -> Outline. Click OK.

Go to Manufacture -> Artwork. Artwork Control Form opens. On the bottom, click on Apertures, then Edit, then Auto -> Without Rotation. Click on OK and go back to the Artwork Control Form.

Under General Parameters tab, select the output format (generally, Gerber RS274X ). If you got any errors about precision, set the appropriate values under Format.

Right click on the Available Films Window and select Add. Name the new film as BoardOutline. Click on OK.

Go to Display -> Visibility and turn off all layers except Soldermask_Top. Go to Manufacture -> Artwork and create a film layer with that name, similar to what you did for BoardOutline. Repeat the steps for Soldermask_Bottom, Silkscreen_Top and Silkscreen_Bottom.

On the right side of the Artwork Control Form, set undefined line width to 10 mils for all film layers. For negative layers (Vdd and Gnd), set the Plot mode to Positive.

Select all Positive layers, and click on Create Artwork. Click on Viewlog to see if there are any errors or warnings, correct them if there are any. Repeat the same for all negative layers.

Close the Artwork Control Form and go to Manufacture -> NC -> NC Drill. Set the Scale Factor to 1, unselect all options (including Repeat Codes), and click on Drill. See the Viewlog for any errors/warnings.

At the end of this step, you have created all the necessary files for manufacturing (.art files and .drl file). You can find them under a directory similar to /worklib/design_name/physical. To be sure, create a new board in PCB Editor window and import all artwork layers from File -> Import -> Artwork and check if they look good.

Submit the files to the manufacturer.

In the next few pages, we have presented some tips and tricks that are will almost always benefit you. Make sure you go through these.