Once you’ve reviewed build guidelines and considered build practices to minimize costs, it is time to prepare your design and supporting documents. How Component Placement can Make or Break Your Manufacturing Budget. Select components that are readily available and provide alternatives.How Blind and Buried and Through-Hole Vias Can Impact Your PCB Design. Use through-hole vias for most of your drill holes blind and buried vias add cost.Include cost planning early in the design cycle to incorporate details in documents.ĭesign to Cost with Increased Supply Chain Visibility.With thoughtful preparation of stackup guidelines and assembly instructions, your documents contain realizable PCB assemblies at the best cost. Knowing design guidelines at your vendor house allows careful selection of materials and thoughtful preparation of documents. Use elegant tools to remove cost when supplying build files Work with Fabricators and Assemblers to Follow Design GuidelinesĪ cost-effective build results when designers communicate and follow vendor design guidelines. Eliminate the need to make special requests in the middle of your build by working with your vendors to understand their needs for a successful build. Communication with fabricators and with assemblers enables engineers to specify materials, drilling, and components that the fabricators and the assemblers can achieve. Designing a PCB includes the ability to source materials and to apply design constraints defined in the PCB documentation. Knowledge of vendor design guidelines is the first step to getting a PCB assembly successfully priced.
Fabrication Guidelines and StackUp Drive PCB Assembly Cost A good document package clearly communicates design needs to your fabricators and your assemblers resulting in pricing availability well before build dates. Components listed on the BoM must contain accurate vendor parts numbers and, in best cases, alternate parts to enable competitive pricing. Bills of Material must contain at least one part for every reference designator on the silkscreen files. Drill hole sizes and pads must match Gerber files. Stackup notes must match each Gerber layer. Accurate pricing comes from instructions included on, or with, PCB documents that clearly reflect the same information. Getting clear instructions to your fabrication and assembly vendors is critical for accurate pricing. Next comes assembly, and the assembler consults the Bill of Materials, and any notes to determine special handling that will drive costs. Materials selected to achieve the stackup together with tooling drive pricing. The fabricator consults the Gerbers which must include notes specifying the stackup and other specifications such as drill hole size and associated pads. The design documents include the Gerber files, drill files, Bill of Materials, and the assembly instructions. Knowledge of the design is communicated in the design documents. Each fabrication and assembly house has guidelines for achieving design intent and these requirements drive PCB fabrication and assembly costs. Once fabricated, assembly houses take the blank board and solder components onto them to make the final board. It incorporates stackup management to include impedance control, drill holes, and plating. The design incorporates material selection including copper, plating, and laminates for the fabrication. The design is communicated in the fabrication and assembly documents. Produce low-cost instructions with elegant drill filesĬalculating printed circuit board fabrication and assembly costs requires knowledge of the design. PCB design tools capable of tracking costs and keeping production expenditures in budget.