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PCBD-Sept2017

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8 The PCB Design Magazine • September 2017 We've heard it for decades: The days of throwing a design over the wall are ancient his- tory. After all, designers have embraced fully optimized DFM processes. Right? Maybe not. When we survey our readers about the biggest challenges they face, DFM is mentioned almost every time. Whether it's a re- sult of unclear DFM guidelines, a lack of time for DFM review, or outdated design rules, DFM continues to cause designers problems. Even designers—not all of them, of course—seem to realize that they might not know all they need to know about fabrication. Now, board shops are offering facility tours to help PCB designers and design engineers un- derstand exactly how their designs are trans- formed into a PCB. Columnist Mark Thompson leads tours of Prototron Circuits, and he's found that even veteran designers are shocked by how much they didn't know about the fabrication processes of today. Most PCB designers haven't been in a board shop in years, if ever. Fabrica- tors feel that this is a big part of the problem. Designers are certainly hungry for informa- tion about manufacturing. Some of Mark's col- umns focusing on what happens to PCB design data in the CAM department have garnered over 7,000 views. And DFM classes at trade shows and conferences draw a steady crowd. But Consulting Technical Editor Happy Holden believes that there's much more to un- derstanding DFM than taking a tour of a board shop. Happy has been involved with DFM for over 45 years, when he first applied engineer- ing knowledge to designing and manufactur- ing PCBs at Hewlett-Packard. As he points out in this issue, PCB designers need to understand that true DFM is really a form of predictive en- by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 Redefining DFM THE SHAUGHNESSY REPORT

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