There was a time when, once the design was done, the engineer could move on to the next embedded project. Design for manufacturing (DFM) was the responsibility of a PCB designer, components engineer or manufacturing engineer. In other words, someone else would take care of all of the details related to ensuring a working finished printed circuit board assembly. Those days are gone. With compressed schedules, quick-turn everything, and a bit of supply chain madness thrown in for good measure, a design engineer must be cognisant of manufacturing from the first days of concept development until the boards roll out of the reflow oven and into a test fixture. DFM now requires a holistic systems level perspective.

This session will walk you through the systems level DFM process showing when and where the most common prototyping pitfalls occur and how to avoid them.

Key topics covered

• Component selection for a broken supply chain
• Design issues that will affect manufacturability
• Getting ready for the hand off
• Keeping involved in the prototype manufacturing process

Keywords: hardware, prototype, manufacturing, DFM