As all of you are well aware, Reliability Matters is all about reliability, specifically reliability of circuit assemblies. One challenge that seems to be persistent within our space is design for manufacturability, or DfM. If you’re a contract manufacturer, no doubt you’ve had the experience of being asked to build a product that seems unbuildable. One example that rings true was the introduction of bottom terminated components or BTCs. BTC’s are marvelous components.

Because all the lead terminations are below the part, they permit highly dense component placement and highly miniaturized assemblies. They also presented a number of unique challenges in reflow, in many cases voiding, cleaning, and inspection. Like many other industries, we are not immune to the introduction of new technologies that may lack implementation knowledge. We then spend the next several years at technical conferences and symposiums learning us how to implement these new technologies. There are many acronyms in our industry that begin with Df… 

Design for testability, mechanical assembly, serviceability, reliability, and so many more. So many in fact, that there is a placeholder acronym for all of the various design fours refer to as DFx. Perhaps the holy grail of DFx is DfM (design for manufacturability) as it encompasses so many aspects of assembly.

Today Andrew Williams helps us understand what exactly DFM is. He is engineering manager for electronics manufacturing at PRIDE Industries. He has more than 30 years of experience in manufacturing and design and holds an SMT Process Engineer certification from SMTA and an IPC Certified Electronics Program Manager. He is a guest lecturer at UC Davis and Cal State University Sacramento for Supply Chain Management, Operations, and TQM courses, and speaks frequently on DfM, DfS, and other DfX topics.

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