Overview of the JEDEC JEP30 Standard

With all the CAD tools that have been built for electronics design, a persistent challenge is development of standardized data formats that solve real pain points for designers and manufacturers. The manufacturing side of the industry has done significant work to standardize data such that a designer can manufacture a board anywhere with a single set of output files. CAD tools have some catching up to do, which is why the major CAD and EDA vendors have bought into standards like IPC-2581.

One such standard that carries promise for standardization among CAD, EDA, supply chain, and CAM software vendors is JEP30, published by JEDEC and also known as the JEP30 PartModel Guidelines. The most recent update to this standard was published in May 2023, and the standard continues to advocate for a unified data model for electronic components.

The JEP30 standard intends to provide a uniform data structure for all forms of electronic parts, encompassing various sub-sections such as electrical, physical, thermal, and assembly process classification data. These are universal portions of a component’s dataset that apply in schematic capture, PCB design, simulation, and manufacturing. Keep reading to learn more about the contents of the standard, as well as how it could facilitate the next generation of ECAD software.

What’s in the JEP30 Data Structure

The data structure defined in the JEP30 standard is a uniform data structure for electronic component data. The JEP30 standard is built around a parental structure, which includes various sub-sections pertaining to a different aspect of an electronic component. Each sub-section holds specific information about the electronic part, providing a comprehensive overview of its characteristics.

An example of the parental structure in the JEP30 standard is shown below. There are five sections that define all the necessary information needed to understand the electrical behavior, physical structure, and manufacturing usage of the component.

The parental structure enforced above is used to build a data file for a component in XML format, again similar to IPC-2581. The JEP30 guidelines define each of the above sections in the standard XML data structure, which allows very simple data extraction and parsing in any application. Technically any type of data could be included in these sections, including product change notices and lifecycle information. This extensible data format enables scalability across any design, simulation, manufacturing, and archiving application.

From this standardized data structure, we can already see how software vendors in different portions of the industry can benefit from such a unified data structure.

Benefits for PCB Designers

For PCB designers, adoption of the JEP30 standard simplifies the process of importing electronic parts into their designs. The standard's structured data format allows them to easily access and process all the necessary data about an electronic part, from its electrical and physical properties to its thermal characteristics and assembly requirements.

The same can be said for supporting programs used by PCB designers, such as:

• Simulation software
• System-level EDA software
• Component data warehousing

Furthermore, the JEP30 standard's focus on materials and substances present in the supplied product or sub-products allows PCB designers to ensure that their designs comply with regulatory and environmental standards.

Benefits for Manufacturers

Manufacturers use CAM software to convert CAD data into manufacturing data used on the factory floor. The JEP30 standard provides an opportunity for CAM software vendors to implement a new level of verification and traceability that formerly required manual implementation. Quick access to component data pre-fabrication and post-assembly can help streamline inspection by catching defects and design errors before a project gets too far into the production process and incurs scrap cost.

Summary

In summary, the JEP30 standard promotes interoperability in the electronics industry, but it has yet to see broad adaptation among ECAD, EDA, simulation, and CAM software vendors. Using a common data format for component data exchange is logical as a variety of applications could use a single file to describe all aspects of a component’s functions and structure. This is particularly important in the context of ECAD/CAM software, which often needs to interact with other systems and software in the design and manufacturing process.

Although any software vendor would agree that universal file formats are superior, why has the ECAD software industry not implemented this standard as a tool for interoperability. It could be that designers are unaware and have not demanded it, or it could be that JEDEC has failed to properly engage major players. However, once adoption kicks off, expect the best CAD vendors to implement support for JEDEC JEP30 as a standard feature for interoperability and data exchange.

No matter how the data structure in your components is defined, you can quickly create and place components for your PCB using the complete set of industry-standard PCB design features in OrCAD from Cadence. Only Cadence offers a comprehensive set of circuit, IC, and PCB design tools for any application and any level of complexity.

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