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Designed for Manufacture?
December 11, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
The most important aspect of designing a PCB is the end goal, which in almost every case is a reliable, cost-efficient product, delivered on time for a reasonable price.
The importance of knowing how your board is made is immeasurable, so give your manufacturer a call and arrange a visit to his site. Knowing how he makes your boards will help you with every design.
The suggestions in this article are not the Holy Grail of design, and they do not address any specific design techniques. In most cases the suggestions are common sense, which when practiced regularly will become second nature and save you time.
Let us suggest concentrating on three areas that will provide the greatest return on your investment in time and education.
Early Engagement with the Manufacturer
Get involved with your manufacturer at an early stage. Ask him to create the layer build for you and provide impedance calculations for your requirements. There is little point in designing a board which cannot be manufactured or rules out the majority of manufacturers due to technology constraints.
We see multilayer boards where the designer has placed a drill stage between each layer pair, which requires multiple sequential bonding operations, tower vias and copper filling. Often there is little need for this and simple through drills will achieve exactly the same result for a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time. We have also redesigned a board for a customer with a 0.25 mm pitch BGA which was using 0.1 mm through drills and 0.03 mm track and gap. By using a six-layer build with a layer 3-4 drilled core, foils on layers 1, 2, 5, and 6, and tower vias from 1-2, 2-3, 5-4, and 6-5, we were able to route the board with 0.1 mm track and gap. The board was more complex in terms of bonding, but the improved track and gap increased yield from 40% to 100%, which reduced the cost and improved the reliability and durability of the finished product.Read the full article here.Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the October 2013 issue of The PCB Design Magazine.