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Whenever you bring a new product to market, there are many considerations and iterations required to find the optimal design.

Whenever you bring a new product to market, there are many considerations and iterations required to find the optimal design. A key element that designers often don’t consider early enough is the ease of manufacturing the final product. When you’re focusing on adding functionality and improving the product’s durability, the PCB’s assembly requirements may seem inconsequential. However, design for manufacturability (DFM) is crucial to ensure the successful launch of your product.

What Is Design for Manufacturability?

Two distinct processes ensure your product’s manufacturability. Applying design for assembly (DFA) and design for fabrication (DFF) principles early in the product development process will save a lot of iterations and rework when finalizing the design.

Design for Fabrication

DFF focuses on issues relating to the fabrication of the boards. With DFF, the board’s layout considers not just the lines and bond dimensions but includes solving issues such as heat dissipation, connector location and any possible future updates to the product. By applying DFF design considerations early, you optimize both the PCB’s layout and cost before moving to the manufacturing stages.

Design for Assembly

Once you’ve optimized the DFF of the board, you’ll need to find the best assembly process for the final product. DFA ensures you develop the manufacturing process instructions (MPIs) that will make your product’s assembly run efficiently. Here at Sonic Manufacturing Technologies, we assist you by developing the required MPIs directly on an active production line.

Whether it’s a demo or development board, using active production lines during the prototype stages will ensure you find the optimal assembly processes early. It will also highlight any design deficiencies before they become showstoppers in the product’s manufacturing lifecycle.

Why You Need DFM for Your Printed Circuit Board

Design teams often leave the manufacturing considerations to the vendor. Once the vendor receives the design, they’ll conduct a manufacturability analysis and make the necessary changes to optimize the assembly process. If any disconnection exists between the designers and the manufacturing company, they may neglect communicating all the changes to the design team.

The impact of these changes could have drastic effects on the final product’s functionality. To eliminate the risks associated with this, getting the manufacturer involved early and collaborating with them during every iteration of the design is essential.

Sonic Manufacturing’s PCBA Design for Manufacturability Services

Sonic Manufacturing Technologies uses state of the art production lines to develop the MPIs and optimize the layout of the design. Our engineers can highlight any issues with the initial design and suggest changes that’ll improve your product’s feasibility.

Our services include:

• PCB layout and engineering
• Design for manufacturing analysis
• Design for test analysis
• New product introduction
• Component engineering and supply chain management

At Sonic Manufacturing, we use an agile manufacturing process to ensure changes and updates do not disrupt any production runs. Additionally, our in-house engineering team will ensure you find an optimized assembly process for the product by developing an efficient MPI for any prototype or demo board.

Take Advantage of Sonic’s Manufacturing Optimization Processes

To guarantee your next product’s successful launch, partner with Sonic Manufacturing to ensure a smooth and efficient development process. Our state-of-the-art facility enables design teams to test designs and find optimized solutions for your product during the early stages of development.

When you need to optimize the design of a solid PCB, a flex board, or a combination of the two, you should get in touch with Sonic Manufacturing Technology’s talented team today.

Originally posted at https://sonicmfg.com/pcba-design-for-manufacturability/

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