All too often, the basic principles of design-for-manufacturing (DFM) get short shrift due to a CM’s greater attention on meeting delivery dates. Also, in some instances, DFM is an afterthought left for assembly engineers and technicians to deal with.

PCB reflow is continually changing and it is no wonder since board and component technologies are dramatically advancing as you, the OEM, require greater product performance and reliability in smaller form factors to meet your market demands.

Heat sinks used to be the primary solution for PCB thermal management. However, today’s board designs produce considerable heat as a result of the highly complex circuits and components populating increasingly smaller boards.

For the record, the acronym DFM, which stands for design-for-manufacturing takes into account PCB design, fabrication, and assembly. So, it goes beyond DFA or design-for-assembly, which is also highly important in its own right.

Given the fact PCBs are highly complex these days, efficient prototype manufacturing takes on newer dimensions, well-trained staffs, and advanced technologies.

Today, with PCBs heavily loaded with mixed-signal technology and finer pitch devices, stencil design and its application at the assembly level are taking on new dimensions.

Finer pitch 0.65 millimeter (MM) and below BGA, QFP, and CSP packaging is increasingly being used for leading-edge mPs, DSPs, and FPGAs. OEMs are taking advantage of these newer technology developments by not only requiring more functionality on their PCBs, but shrinking their real estate.

Component placement isn’t what it used to be. Within a very short period recently, demands for greater PCB functionality, use of more advanced technologies and customer requirements for smaller, more compact, and more densely populated designs

We wish you, your families, loved ones, and friends good health and best wishes as we move into the next decade. As 2009 comes to a close, each of us at Nexlogic Technologies wants to express our thanks and appreciation to you for your customer loyalty and for the opportunity to work with you and your staffs.

Design-for-test or DFT takes into account several major and minor considerations at the design layout stage. The overall DFT success for 90 percent plus test coverage relies heavily on implementing critical design considerations.

Avoiding PCB soldering defects rests largely on whether or not a thermal profile is correctly developed. These defects can arise from reflow, wave soldering or hand soldering.

MicroBGAs are among the most advanced devices and are quickly becoming the package of choice for PCB designers. These device packages have highly challenging 0.4-, 0.3- and even 0.25mm pitch.

PCB procurement is categorized as either prototype or production boards or both. But the common denominator is both require assurances that an EMS provider or contract manufacturer (CM) has a fabrication house with the capability and capacity to deliver to OEM purchasing the required quantities on time with high quality product.

Automated vision inspection is a key feature of most advanced stencil printing machines used for printing solder paste onto PCBs. In some PCB assembly camps, vision inspection, whether it be 3D or 2D, is not used and reasons vary.

PCBs are increasingly being populated with BGA packages. A few years ago, boards only had one or two, but today, some PCBs have multiple BGAs, on both component and solder sides of the board.

For years, manually assembling chip test boards has been a common practice in the semiconductor industry.

High-pin count, fine-pitch BGAs with pins ranging upwards of 1,052 and beyond are increasingly being used. This means routing signals becomes more difficult.

The effects of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI) are particularly troublesome when designing PCBs for high-speed systems.

Small form factor wireless devices are increasingly in demand in all areas of business, healthcare, consumer, and mil/aero among other markets. Products like these are based on compact PCBs with tightly spaced digital and analog circuits placed next to each other.

Quality assurance (QA) if foremost in PCB design, fabrication, and assembly. At times, QA is an afterthought implemented at the end of the assembly process.

Happy Holidays! We wish you, your families, loved ones, and friends good health and best wishes as we move into 2009. This past year, we've brought you a variety of topics dealing with the latest in your system and sub-system developments from design, fabrication, and on to assembly.

NexLogic is happy to introduce its Printed Circuit Board Educational Video Series. In this series, NexLogic's experts discuss best practices in PCB Design Layout, Stencil Printing, Testing as well as a number of very important PCB topics, in short yet very informative videos.

The FDA (Federal Drug Administration) is the governing body for approving medical electronics devices intended for monitoring or intervening with the human body.

Layout of an efficient mixed signal design can be time consuming and challenging. However, diligently working on this type of layout can result in a system with less crosstalk, more noise immunity and better EMI performance.

The micro-ball grid array is one of the most advanced surface mount devices and is quickly becoming the package of choice by the electronic circuit designer. A microBGA is a sub class of the generic BGA (ball grid array).

PCB procurement can involve an assortment of give and takes, trade-offs, and a long list of unknowns. However, well-proven guidelines and procedures can be implemented to avoid pitfalls and costly errors.

In case you haven’t visited our Industry Publication section on our website, we wanted to share with you the recent NexLogic publications, including the May article in the EE Times. Below is a list of our recent publications, take a minute and read an article!

The old adage, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” applies to mixed assembly placement of surface mount (SM) and through-hole (T-H) components on a PCB.

To eliminate PCB defects, it is best to work with an EMS provider who offers design, fabrication, and assembly services. Defects arise in most instances due to incorrect or incomplete designs and poorly executed fabrication and assembly.

It’s no big secret that PCB real estate continues to be more complex with greater numbers of devices populating a board and leaving virtually no space for inspection.

OEMs demand smaller and diverse packaging options to meet product design challenges and remain cost competitive in their respective markets.

Newer and more powerful integrated circuits are demanding a closer look at thermal management techniques and materials.

Surface mount (SM) assembly is used for many PCB applications.

Hand soldering of components onto PCBs is occasionally used during PCB assembly.

In PCB design, via refers to a pad with a plated hole that connects copper tracks from one layer of the board to other layer(s).

A common industry practice is to deploy one of three types of thermal profiles, depending on PCB size and largely based on guesstimates.

BGAs are used more commonly now than ever before and are increasing design density and complexity.

Compliance of the European Union’s (EU) RoHS is now over a year old. There has been slow industry response partly due to the EU and associated agencies.

OEMs demand smaller and diverse packaging options to meet product design challenges and remain cost competitive in their respective markets.

The reflow soldering process for lead-free components is similar to conventional eutectic solder reflow process.

Rework is often regarded as a routine aspect of PCB production.

Welcome to the NexLogic Tip of the Month eNewsletter. This month’s edition features Design for Assembly (DFA).