The Expert

• Design for Manufacturing – Beyond the Digital Domain

• • Webinar that Chris Church (Co-Founder of MacroFab) will be co-hosting with Edwin Robledo of AutoDesk.
  • Topics are the following
    • Vias-in-Pad
    • Blind/Buried Vias vs. Back-drilling
    • Acid Traps
    • Stack-ups
    • Edge Clearances
    • Annular Rings

• Building a Program and Testing procedure for your first production run

• • Take lots of pictures
  • Keep it up to date and version controlled
  • Hand off the procedure to a colleague and have them run through it
  • Work with your CM
    • MacroFab works closely to help flesh out procedures and fixture designs
  • What is you acceptable fall out from production
    • This is where scaling up production runs can help iron out QA procedures for your product
    • Find tolerancing issues with components
  • Keep in mind your target pricing

• Elements of a good test procedure – THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

• • It is almost impossible to have too much information in your test procedure – within reason.
  • Remember – Your CM can always distill your information down to something less than what you provide
  • Typically they have one “expert” who knows everything and multiple operators who execute the tasks.
  • You don’t know when your documentation is needed so be thorough
  • Assume that the reader has basic skills.

• Things to include in the documentation – preferably at the top

• • Product/assembly name
  • Test procedure Rev
  • List of board revisions that this procedure applies to
  • Map or image of terms or items
  • List of ALL software required
    • Do not assume that your CM has anything
    • If software version is important make sure this is called out
  • List of ALL files required
    • Be explicit with the names
    • Do not be shy with file structure
  • Be consistent
    • If you call a board X then always call it X

• Test procedure Meat and potatoes

• • List of required equipment
    • What can be expected of a CM to have?
    • Be granular here. All the way down to cables
    • Do not be afraid to call out amazon links to required items
  • List every step
  • Avoid parallel anything – Sequential steps are the best
  • Always have criteria and be reasonable!
    • consider how the operator will approach your target and adjust accordingly!
    • Failures – Let the operator know what to do with a failure
    • Do not suggest “hot fixes”
  • Pictures are worth a thousand words
    • Pictures of test points
    • have pictures of your fancy script!
    • be explicit with the outputs!
  • If anything is to be marked or saved be explicit how and where to do it. If there is a sticker or label to be applied show a picture where you want it to go.

Listen to Circuit Break Ep #278 when Chris Church returns with Altium CEO Ted Pawela to discuss how the two companies are working together.