Designers Notebook: What Designers Need to Know About Manufacturing, Part 1

JANUARY 25, 2024

The designer needs to have a working understanding of two key manufacturing operations: basic circuit board fabrication procedures and assembly process practices. For printed circuit board manufacturing, the number of steps required to produce the printed circuit board correlates to the circuit board’s complexity. Greater process complexity in fabricating the circuit board equates to increased costs. To develop any portion of the electronic product, the designer must apply the design for manufacturing (DFM) principles established in the industry. In fact, DFM should always be the goal of the design engineer. It encompasses a wide range of disciplines that must be considered during the planning phase of any product.