The Designer and Manufacturer Must Be in Sync

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

“Why can’t we all just get along?”—Henry Liberman, TEDx

It’s no industry secret that most PCB data packages sent to fabricators from designers cannot be built as-is. The finished boards often seem to work, despite a factory estimating what the designer wanted vs. what the documentation showed, then jointly rectifying issues through lengthy technical query (TQ) cycles. In general, everyone seems to be satisfied with this process, so why do we need to improve the designer/manufacturer relationship? Why is the best solution a strong designer/manufacturer relationship, and is it even possible?

Let’s perform a traditional root cause analysis and define the function of a designer vs. a manufacturer.  Oxford Language definitions:

Designer: A person who plans the form, look, or workings of something before its being made or built, typically by drawing it in detail.

Manufacturer: A person or company that makes goods for sale.

This seems pretty straightforward. The manufacturer builds the product based on the supplied documentation. Unfortunately, the manufacturer’s front-end engineering team typically completes a portion of the design after the data package is received because it can’t be built as submitted. The manufacturer must update the design to maximize yield, meet cost targets, ensure reliability, and meet all performance requirements.

Typical design functions performed by the manufacturer include creating a material stackup that meets the specified mechanical thicknesses/tolerances, material selection, line width/spacing modification to generate the specified impedance/tolerance, creating the assembly array/panel design/documentation, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, such as UL.

To read this entire article, which appeared in the January 2024 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.