Export

File → Export Fabrication Files… opens one dialog over the whole fabrication package. The package is the unit you hand a shop, so there is no per-format submenu.

The center of the dialog is the list of files it would write. That list follows the design as it stands, and the Export button writes exactly those files.

The dialog does not remember what you set — what is ticked, the version, the folder, the name. Each time it opens, the version is R2000 again and the rest come from the document: every deliverable that can be written ticked, the design’s own folder, and the file’s name with the open component’s as the base.

The export dialog: one process block listing the two mask files it would write, over the DXF version, folder and base name

The target line

The target line at the right under the heading, Component: Chip · Stack: substrate, names what these files fabricate. Export writes what the viewport shows, so the component is the one you have open and the stack is the active one.

Opening a component and exporting fabricates that component, whether it is the design’s root or a subassembly of it. Where it is not the root, a warning-colored not the root component (Chip) trails the line, naming the root you did not export.

A process block

There is one block per process forming a layer of this stack, headed with its name and the layers it forms — soft-lithography · layers 0–2. A stack whose layers all inherit one process has a single block.

The block holds a checkbox per deliverable that process publishes, with the file format at the right of its row. Under each checkbox are the files it would write, grouped by layer. The names follow one pattern, chip-Chip-layer1-mask50.dxf: the base name, the layer, and what the file is. The layer is the number the Layers section shows, so a file matches its slab by name. A mask set gives one file per distinct depth in a layer; cut contours give one per sheet; a secondary-op table gives one -ops.csv per layer with holes to cut. See Deliverables for what each writes.

After assembly

Below the process blocks, a section headed After assembly · the bonded stack appears when any process in the stack publishes a deliverable of the finished part rather than of a sheet. Today that is the secondary-op table: holes drilled after the layers are bonded are one operation on the whole device, so they belong to no layer and no process. Its checkbox is ticked once for the stack, and the file it writes is named chip-Chip-assembly-ops.csv.

The section is absent when nothing publishes such an artifact, and it plans no file when nothing in the design is cut after bonding.

A file already sitting in the folder is marked overwrite on its row. There is no second confirmation behind it.

A deliverable this version cannot write yet keeps its row, disabled and marked not exported yet. A process that publishes nothing gets its block anyway and says so.

The line closing each block is that process’s compensation: whether it is characterized, and at what scale. You cannot change it here — compensation is authored on the process — and it matches the sentence the exported files carry.

A layer carrying blind features on both of its faces is not exported yet, and says so in warning color under the blocks: Layer 2: blind features on both faces are not exported yet.

The package statements

No files: names the layers the package leaves without one, and why each is silent — No files: layers 1–2 — nothing ticked for ‘soft-lithography’. A featureless slab is not listed at all, since a blank lid produces no file, and neither is a layer whose only ticked deliverable legitimately has nothing to say about it — that reads what is ticked for ‘soft-lithography’ produces no file for it.

Leftovers from an earlier export under this base — a mask for a deliverable since unticked, a depth since changed — are listed under a warning line. One checkbox, Move into superseded/, governs the lot. It is ticked by default, and nothing is deleted: each file moves one folder down.

Version, folder and name

DXF version is R2000 or R12. The line under it states the units the files are in, and it changes with the version. R2000 files state their own units, and the line repeats that. R12 has no way to state units in the file, so the line is the only statement of them and it tells you to confirm with your shop.

Folder shows where the package goes, with Browse… for your system’s folder picker. Base is the file-name stem every name in the list is built from, committed on Enter or focus loss — change it and the whole list renames. It opens as the file’s name and the open component’s, chip-Chip. Two components exported into one folder then keep distinct names, so neither reads as the other’s leftovers (→ The package statements).

Outstanding problems

A design with open design-rule findings still exports. The dialog states the count in warning color — 2 DRC errors outstanding, the same findings the Problems section lists — and does nothing else about it. A clean report shows no line at all.

The Export button

The button carries what it will do — Export 5 files · set aside 3 — and is enabled while there is either a file to write or a leftover to move. With nothing ticked and a clean folder it is disabled.

A completed export closes the dialog and leaves a note on the status bar saying how many files went where.

A failed write keeps the dialog open behind the file-error report, so you can point it at another folder and try again. A leftover the tidy-up could not move is reported in that same status note and not as a failure: the package was written.

Cancel, Esc, or a click outside the dialog closes it without writing anything.

Experiware Guide