electronic design interchange format (EDI) (EDIF)

Electronic Design Interchange Format (EDIF) is a vendor-neutral exchange format for design data.

The EDIF format was developed so that vendor-specific file formats for design data could run on different systems. It is supported by the Electronic Industry Association( EIA) and by ANSI and serves as an interface for the exchange of CAD data, Computer Aided Design, and CAE data, Computer Aided Engineering in planning, design, production and manufacturing. The EDIF format dates back to the 1980s. It is a simple text format from the ASCII character set. EDIF files are hierarchically structured and use a specific syntax.

EDIF exists in various versions. The current version EDIF 4 0 0 dates from 1996 and is standardized by the International Electrotechnical Commission( IEC). It is used in printed circuit board design and in the manufacture of multi- chip modules( MCM).