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      <div class="title_topic2" id="xps10_pagetitle">Overview of the PCB.xchange toolbar</div>
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      <p class="para_topic">The PCB.xchange toolbar is a tool kit for importing, exporting and defining printed circuit boards, components, and PCB assemblies. It is designed to be used in conjunction with its sister application, PCB.xchange, to provide comprehensive integration of Electrical and Mechanical design of PCB assemblies. Together, the PCB.xchange toolbar and PCB.xchange facilitate concurrent engineering, shared data and version control between ECAD and MCAD systems. The process is based on the Intermediate Data Format (IDF) specification, a file format intended for data exchange between these systems. The IDF format is supported by most ECAD vendors.</p>
      <p class="para_topic">There are two ways to use the PCB.xchange toolbar and PCB.xchange to facilitate ECAD/MCAD design integration:</p>
      <ul>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">You can create a new PCB assembly using NX tools and the PCB.xchange toolbar, then export an ECAD file. </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">You can import an existing PCB assembly, then use NX tools and the PCB.xchange toolbar to make changes or additions to the assembly. </p>
         </li>
      </ul>
      <p class="para_topic">In either case, you may want to open the PCB.xchange window to access additional tools to modify, manage or update the PCB Assembly. An icon on the PCB.xchange toolbar provides ready access.</p>
      <div class="title_division">The mechanical/electrical PCB design process</div>
      <p class="para_division">The typical design process usually follows this path: The mechanical engineer defines the board shape, specifies important keep-ins and keep-outs, and preplaces critical components such as connectors, switches, displays, and LEDs using a mechanical CAD application. This information is passed to the electrical engineer to use as the basis for the board layout in the electrical CAD application. After the remaining components are placed, the board assembly is checked by the mechanical engineer to make sure it fits into the final product package. Multiple iterations of this basic flow can occur during the product design phase.</p>
      <div class="title_division"> Working with the PCB.xchange toolbar</div>
      <p class="para_division">The PCB.xchange toolbar provides tools for mechanical engineers to participate in the design of PC boards. Access the PCB.xchange toolbar by selecting PCB.xchange on the NX <b class="uiTerm">Start</b> menu. The PCB.xchange toolbar and the PCB.xchange menu in the NX menubar both appear.
      </p>
      <p class="para_division">Following a simple intuitive physical modeling approach in NX, all design work on the PCB assembly can be automatically converted to ECAD. You can work with IDF version 2, version 3 or version 4 as desired. Component placement, attributes and offset are supported. Attribute definition is ECAD-compliant.</p>
      <div class="title_division"> Creating a new PCB assembly</div>
      <ul>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item"><b>Board creation&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;</b>Using standard NX modeling tools, you can create a printed circuit board (PCB) as a 3-D part in the Modeling application. You can use the PCB.xchange toolbar to identify the part as a PC board with appropriate attributes. Boards are easily modified, copied or stored as part files.
            </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item"><b>Defining restriction areas&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;</b>Outline areas (also called restriction areas) can be easily defined by creating sketches on the top or bottom of the board part. With the PCB.xchange toolbar you can identify the sketch as a placement outline, a routing outline or another type. Keep-in and keep-out types can be defined, as well as height restrictions, outline color and style.
            </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item"><b>Defining drilled holes&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;</b>You can model drilled holes using the Simple Hole option in the Modeling application and identify them as drilled holes with a variety of attributes. You can move, copy or modify defined holes by performing these operations on the part in NX. 
            </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item"><b>Optional Detailed Component Creation&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;</b>If you want to include detailed 3-D components, you can use NX modeling tools to create them as parts. The part's Absolute CSYS defines part origin and orientation. Typically these parts are stored in component collections. 
            </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item"><b>Creating a PCB Assembly&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;</b>When working with the Assemblies application, you can assemble a PC Board and some&mdash;or all&mdash;of its components. The PCB.xchange toolbar allows you to define the component's package number, part number and other attributes. The component's reference designator is defined as the assembly component name in the Assemblies application. The component's position on the PC board is defined using NX modeling tools. Components are easily repositioned, copied or deleted using the standard Assembly tools. 
            </p>
            <p class="para_item">See <a class="links" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="top.openFile('pcb/02topic_3.html');return(false);">Defining a PCB Assembly</a> for more information.
            </p>
         </li>
      </ul>
      <div class="title_division"> Working with a PCB Assembly imported from ECAD</div>
      <p class="para_division">When a PCB assembly is imported into NX via PCB.xchange, it appears as an NX assembly. The root part for the NX assembly usually corresponds to the PC board part, but the root may be defined as any part. An NX part file is created for each unique PCB component package name in the PCB assembly. If there are multiple instances of PCB components with the same package name, they appear as assembly components in the NX assembly. The assembly may be described briefly as follows.</p>
      <ul>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">The PC board is stored as an assembly part in the directory specified in PCB.xchange. It is named with the PC board's name.</p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">For each unique PCB component package name, the component footprint is extruded to the component's height to create a 3-D &quot;ice cube&quot; representation of the component, and stored as a part. Each of these parts is named with the PCB component's package name. </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">PCB Components with the same package name are imported as assembly components referencing the same part.</p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">PCB Components with different package names are imported as components referencing different parts.</p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">If a part with a given package name already exists in TeamCenter or the component directory specified in PCB.xchange, you can specify that the import use existing parts. This allows you to create and maintain detailed 3-D parts through the design cycle. See <a class="links" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="top.openFile('pcb/mu_managing.html');return(false);">Managing Detailed Component Parts</a> for more information.
            </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Restriction areas are created as sketches on the board surface. </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Drilled holes appear as Hole features. </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Reference designators are imported as assembly component names. </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Component part numbers are imported as attributes of the assembly component. </p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Component attributes are preserved as PCB.xchange component attributes.</p>
         </li>
      </ul>
      <p class="para_division">Any supported characteristic of the assembly or the parts can be modified, and the modification is translated back into ECAD when the assembly is exported. The main characteristics that may be modified are:</p>
      <ul>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">PC Board size, thickness and cutouts</p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Drilled hole size, position and attributes</p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Restriction area size, shape and attributes</p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Component position and orientation, including mounting offset</p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Component reference designator, package name and part number</p>
         </li>
         <li>
            <p class="para_item">Component size and shape and details (modifications must conform to your ECAD system's standard for that package name)</p>
         </li>
      </ul>
      <p class="para_division">See<a class="links" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="top.openFile('pcb/mu_modifying.html');return(false);"> Modifying a PCB Assembly </a> for more information.
      </p>
      <div class="title_division">Validation and display of PCB assembly information</div>
      <p class="para_division">You can generate a detailed report on a PCB Assembly by clicking the <b class="uiTerm">Info/Validate PCB Assembly</b> button on the PCB.xchange toolbar. At the same time, PCB.xchange validates the assembly in preparation for translation to ECAD; any errors are listed in the report.
      </p>
      <p class="para_division">See<a class="links" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="top.openFile('pcb/mu_validating.html');return(false);"> Validating a PCB assembly </a> for more information
      </p>
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