-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueThe Designer of the Future
Our expert contributors peer into their crystal balls and offer their thoughts on the designers and design engineers of tomorrow, and what their jobs will look like.
Advanced Packaging and Stackup Design
This month, our expert contributors discuss the impact of advanced packaging on stackup design—from SI and DFM challenges through the variety of material tradeoffs that designers must contend with in HDI and UHDI.
Rules of Thumb
This month, we delve into rules of thumb—which ones work, which ones should be avoided. Rules of thumb are everywhere, but there may be hundreds of rules of thumb for PCB design. How do we separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak?
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Good In, Good Out: Bay Area Circuits Discusses Data Strategies
December 2, 2015 | Barry Matties, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
A lot of companies talk about the importance of good data management, but for some firms, this amounts to little more than lip service. Then there are companies like fabricator Bay Area Circuits. I recently sat down with Bay Area Circuits President Stephen Garcia and COO Brian Paper to discuss how automating and upgrading their data systems has significantly cut down overall process time, as well as their drive to educate young PCB designers and actively promote the industry to the emerging electronics industry workforce.
Barry Matties: Let’s talk about how you manage your data. Are you a completely electronic company?
Stephen Garcia: We have tried to go as paperless as possible, and we're talking actual production data starting from the Gerber. We use Ucamco's Integr8tor software, which is the entire company's backbone. That is our database. Everything is automated. And then we've tied in our own software to connect supplement Integr8tor.
Matties: When you say your own software, is that something you developed?
Garcia: Yes, it's basically a customized CRM platform. Some production data, like process cards, are still printed, but eventually everything is digitized and stored on our servers for easy access which is especially important given that a good portion of our engineering staff works remotely and needs real-time access to data.
As we continue to grow and identify bottlenecks, we make sure employees have the access they need. Not long ago, QC may have been inspecting a job but may not have all the details. Maybe they just had a fab print and the process card, so would have to walk over to Planning and say “I'm seeing something out of the ordinary; was this approved by the customer?” Today they have full access. Each job gets a tool number, and then everything is saved on our server for employees to access the data required.
That's the hardest part of our job: incomplete or conflicting customer data. Every customer is different when it comes to Gerbers and their fab prints. We have a handful of customers who often provide us with Gerbers that rarely match the fab print. It might be a non-plated hole on their fab print, but then their Gerber is plated, things of that nature. Our system allows employees to have access to the data to investigate any issues and prevent production hiccups.
Brian Paper: We've put more emphasis on the netlist too, as far as ensuring that the customers are providing us with that type of information. We just posted a whole blog post on what a netlist is, and why it's important.
Garcia: With every customer being different, our biggest challenge is trying to educate them about what we need to successfully manufacture their project and why we need it. It’s amazing that even when some of our larger customers put on a generic fab print, half of it doesn't apply to the actual board, and we need to get approval. We say, “Hey, can we deviate away from your fab print?” and they say, “Yeah, that shouldn't be there. Just ignore it.” It definitely slows things down. We've really tried to automate as much as possible from the minute we get Gerbers.
To read this entire article, which appeared in the November 2015 issue of The PCB Design Magazine, click here.
Suggested Items
TSK Schill GmbH Closes 2024 With a Record Turnover
01/14/2025 | TSK Schill GmbHAt TSK, the course continues to be set for growth. Despite the turbulent market development, we were able to increase our turnover “EBIT”. We generated a large proportion of our turnover with Solution Business.
Data Paints a Picture—Can You See It?
01/09/2025 | Marcy LaRont, PCB007 MagazineAndrew Kelley is CTO of Xact PCB, a company founded by engineers with firsthand experience in PCB fabricators. Xact PCB has developed a cutting-edge system to monitor and predict the registration of inner layers through advanced registration control systems. By leveraging data collected from various production stages, Xact PCB’s GX tool enhances precision. It minimizes errors, ensuring that the final products meet their customers' exact specifications while eliminating the need for costly pilot lots.
Designers Notebook: Impact of Advanced Semiconductor Packaging on PCB Stackup
01/07/2025 | Vern Solberg -- Column: Designer's NotebookTo accommodate new generations of high I/O semiconductor packaging, printed circuit board fabrication technology has had to undergo significant changes in both the process methods and the criteria for base material selection and construction sequence (stackup). Many of the new high-function multi-core semiconductor package families require more terminals than their predecessors, requiring a significantly narrower terminal pitch. Interconnecting these very fine-pitch, high I/O semiconductors to the PCB is made possible by an intermediate element referred to as an interposer.
Focus on electronica: Standards and the Factory of the Future
01/08/2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamDr. Thomas Marktscheffel, director of product management software solutions for ASMPT, gave a presentation at electronica 2024 titled Standards Driving the Factory of the Future. We asked Thomas to share his thoughts about the class, why this topic is so important, and what he hoped attendees would take away from his class.
Altus Highlights Heller Industries Advances in Void Reduction Under 1%
01/06/2025 | Altus GroupAltus Group, a leading distributor of capital equipment in the UK and Ireland, emphasises the importance of reducing voids in reflow soldering to improve manufacturing efficiency and product reliability