Design for manufacture

As with every product there is a balance to be struck between material and manufacturing cost. Too often the focus is placed on material and not the total product cost. Someone within the project must take ownership of the product manufacturability to ensure that compromises are not made in favour of material cost without consideration of the manufacturing implications. At the very least, the process methodology must be identified before PCB design and component selection begins. The author discusses the following aspects of surface mount technology: panel load; solder paste printing; dispensing; high speed chip mounting; IC placement; and reflow. The author then discusses component testing and assembly of a hand-portable mobile phone product. PCB manufacturing, final assembly and product testing must form an integral part of the design process. Simply concentrating on the materials cost and/or the circuit design is only performing a fraction of the task and will result in cost penalties. The only way to guarantee the lowest product cost is to ensure that all of the bases are covered and this is only effective when someone `owns´ the development area