Creating an IPC-D-356 Netlist

Verification of photo plots to the original design database is made possible by an IPC-D-356 Netlist. This type of netlist consists of connection information in an ordinate format – or a virtual 3 dimensional description of any net. 

Take a look at the following examples of netlist formats:

A simple netlist, such as might be generated by typical schematic capture software consists only of part/pin connection references.

Schematic Netlist:

*SIGNAL* NET_1
U1.1 U2.1


The same IPC-D-356 netlist connection generated from the CAD database by CAM350 would look like this:

CAD Data IPC Netlist:

317NET_1 VIA MD 500PA00X+ 2700Y+ 2000X1000Y S0
317NET_1 VIA MD 500PA00X+ 13400Y+ 2000X1000Y S0
327NET_1 U1 -1 A01X+ 2690Y+ 4550X 600Y2100 S2
327NET_1 U2 -1 A01X+ 13390Y+ 4550X 600Y2100 S2


And the same extracted net from the fabrication data by CAM350 would look like this:

Extracted Netlist:

317$Net0 VIA MD 500PA00X+ 2700Y+ 2000X1000Y S0
317$Net0 VIA MD 500PA00X+ 13400Y+ 2000X1000Y S0
327$Net0 VIA A01X+ 13390Y+ 4550X 600Y2100 S2
327$Net0 VIA A01X+ 13400Y+ 3000X 150Y S2
327$Net0 VIA A01X+ 2690Y+ 4550X 600Y2100 S2
327$Net0 VIA A01X+ 2700Y+ 3000X 150Y S2


Whether you can read this or not doesn’t matter, that’s what the software’s for.


CAM350 uses the PCB design database (as opposed to Gerber and NC drill data) to produce the reference IPC-D-356 netlist to which the fabrication materials will be compared.

Begin by opening a new session of CAM350.

From the File pull down menu, import CAD Data and select the appropriate CAD format.

Set a path to the ASCII file and Open it.

Numerous queries and warnings will pop up. For the purpose of creating the IPC-D-356 netlist, it’s not necessary to Extract Polygons for net checking.

…and you can acknowledge the warnings that follow.

Once the ASCII file has loaded, Export the IPC-D-356 netlist:

From the File/Export/Netlist select the IPC-D-356 option.

Click OK with the LMB, set a path and filename for the netlist and Save it.

There is no need to save the imported ASCII file once the IPC-D-356 netlist has been saved.