Design for Manufacturing (DFM)

Stubs On Transmission Lines—What Do They Do And How Do You Keep Them From Happening?

Stubs On Transmission Lines—What Do They Do And How Do You Keep Them From Happening? In other articles we have written PCB Design For Test Structures And Tests Performed, Part 2, and How to Control Switching Signals with Terminations for Best Signal Quality, we have described how to properly account for all the various factors that impact the design of high-speed signals. Within those topics, we’ve noted that stubs along a net may have an adverse effect on the quality of those signals. But, we have not thoroughly addressed stubs Read Article

Three Common PCB Design Mistakes You Can Spot in Your Gerbers

Three Common PCB Design Mistakes You Can Spot in Your Gerbers Spotting some common PCB design mistakes will help get your board into production faster I’ll admit that I was not an excellent student until I hit graduate school. At that point, I started putting more energy into my homework than most other areas of my life. Sure, my social life became non-existent, but I soon became an exemplary student and I never looked back. Just like you need to do your homework while in school, you should do your homework Read Article

Mike Konrad on Design for Reliability

Mike Konrad on Design for Reliability Mike Konrad delivers an expert view on the necessity of cleaning boards at assembly, and revisits subjects such as low-residue flux as it pertains to Design for Reliability. Read Article

Common SMT Process Defects to Avoid During Soldering

Common SMT Defects to Avoid During Soldering As more designs are using smaller components with surface-mount pads, Surface-mount Technology (SMT) soldering defects can mount and impact yields due to various design and manufacturing problems. These problems may have been minor and had a negligible effect on yields in the past, but they can cause rework costs to mount quickly and should be avoided. Here is a basic SMT defect list you can avoid during design and assembly. Bridging Between Pads Read Article

Communication from Design to Assembly

Communication from Design to Assembly In a perfect world, a box and enclosure are designed, and then printed circuit boards or flexible circuits are designed to fit within that box perfectly, meeting all the electrical and mechanical requirements of the project. Sadly, most of us don’t get to work in that perfect world and at times must deal with challenges to that original plan. Things don’t always work as expected. Sometimes that is because something obvious was missed., Often it’s Read Article

Avoid Common Pad and Via Problems in Your Last-Minute DFM Check

Avoid Common Pad and Via Problems in Your Last-Minute PCB DFM Check You’ll want to examine your pads and vias for these components during a DFM check There are times where you’ll need to make last minute changes to your board before you send it off to a manufacturer. Similarly, you may need to modify an existing design before sending it off for manufacturing, which may require swapping components as well as slightly rearranging traces and other components. This can occur due to unavailable components or simple Read Article

Generating Outputs for Assemblers

Generating Outputs for Assemblers I was asked recently by a relatively new engineer what files I send to an assembler to make sure they do not encounter problems, and what would reduce the number of clarification questions they ask about the design. That engineer had been working professionally for several years with a large company, and had never had the responsibility of generating outputs or even seen the outputs from the products he was working on, so his only experience was Read Article

Carl Schattke - Designing Complex Boards

Carl Schattke - Designing Complex Boards Carl Schattke gives us a sneak peak of his keynote ‘Making and Breaking the Rules’ at AltiumLive 2019 in Frankfurt. He also shares what he considers the best tool every PCB designer must have. Read Article

Gerry Partida on Wrap Plating

Gerry Partida on Wrap Plating Learn about wrap plating and via filling and what the benefits, requirements and drawbacks of this technology are, and what you need to know about designing these and how this technology drives cost. Read Article

SMTA for Young Professionals

SMTA for Young Professionals The SMTA is an international non-profit with chapters across the world in the US, Canada, Mexico, India, Europe, Brazil, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Since it’s invention in the 1960’s; Surface Mount Technology has helped reduce waste, reduce consumer costs, and most importantly, reduce environmental impact. This industry is creative and inventive. Everything we touch has been engineered. Our industry leaders shape the world around us. Our goal as an Read Article

ECAD/MCAD Co-design for PCB Manufacturing with 3D Printing

ECAD/MCAD Co-design for PCB Manufacturing with 3D Printing It is ironic that PCB design has helped drive the adoption of new technology in all industries, including manufacturing automation, yet PCB manufacturing processes themselves have not seen radical innovation for many decades. Some innovative companies are looking to change this and are driving PCB manufacturing into Industry 4.0. 3D printing is already driving new manufacturing methodologies in every industry, such as “lights out” and digital Read Article

Process Engineering for Advanced Assembly with Chao Vang and Sebastian Weber

Process Engineering for Advanced Assembly with Chao Vang and Sebastian Weber What is the first step for process engineering? Review files for special assembly notes, identify designs that aren’t necessarily the best for manufacturing and communicate on issues immediately. Read Article

Rigid-Flex Prototyping Tips

Rigid-Flex Prototyping Tips Question: What are a few key tips for flex and rigid-flex prototyping? My answer to this question is simple: OVER COMMUNICATE with your fabricator! Typically, prototypes are needed quickly, yet approximately 75%-80% of new part numbers go on hold for engineering questions and clarifications. This can have a significant impact on scheduling. Before you can work on ways to communicate clearly with your fabricator, you need to select the right Read Article

How to Buy PC Boards From a Board Shop

How to Buy PC Boards From a Board Shop Want to know how to buy the best boards? In this OnTrack podcast episode Greg Papandrew shares his better board buying tips. Listen in or watch now to learn more. Read Article

500 Assembled Boards and All of Them Unusable

500 Assembled Boards and All of Them Unusable Recently, I received 500 assembled boards and all of them were unusable. It’s always one of the most exciting yet nerve-wracking times. You’ve been working on a new design, you’ve exhaustively tested prototypes and then you go to volume production. While it’s the same design as the known-good-tested prototype, it’s not necessarily the same “assembly instance,” if you will, so things can happen. Are all of my BOM line items correct? Did I specify Read Article

Why Doesn’t Every Application Use Rigid Flex Technology?

Why Doesn’t Every Application Use Rigid Flex Technology? Why Doesn’t Every Application Use Rigid Flex Technology? Good Question! Rigid-flex technology is a hybrid between rigid boards and flexible circuits,m combing the most favorable aspects of both. The flexible portion helps solve space, weight, and packaging issues because it can bend, fold, and flex in either installation (flex to install) or end use (dynamic flex). The rigid portion supports dense component areas, allowing higher layer counts Read Article

Nothing’s Perfect: Tolerance and the IPC

PCB Dimensions: Tolerance and the IPC Here's where we boldly confront a grim reality - nothing is perfect in the real world. We do our best to maintain accuracy in our circuit board designs, but the manufacturing process produces imperfections. Our CAD systems assume a drill is perfectly centered in a round pad. It never is. We declare specific trace widths, and when we measure them on an actual board they are always slightly thinner or thicker than expected. Multiple layers are Read Article