Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1190860
78 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2019 Andy Shaughnessy: You two bonded on the top- ic of bonding, so to speak. Martindale: Yes, a lot of the conversations I've had working with Kelly have been centered around how to take this part from a base flex circuit to adding a metal piece onto the circuit for his custom application. How do we best build that and deliver you a panel of circuit boards with the metal-backed application? And how do we take that to the assembly side? We had to get a clear picture of when to sin- gulate the part. Should it be performed before or after the assembly stage? There are pros and cons to each strategy. One may be best for pro- totyping, but the strategy may need to change when the part goes to volume. Shaughnessy: What are some of the pros and cons of manufacturing in different parts of Asia? Martindale: We started out as a South Korean PCB manufacturer and expanded into South China. Now we have circuit board capabilities in both countries due to internal customer de- mand. About 15 years ago, we had customers who wanted to vertically integrate and have us do the assembly side. So, we built a 30,000 square foot manufacturing facility in South Ko- rea and started doing the assembly side for our current customer base. We're not a traditional CM; about 45% of our business is bare board today for all differ- ent types of circuits. They're very niche ap- plications. Then, we do the assembly side, which we build the circuit boards for as well. It allows us to offer both a low-cost region out of South China and a higher-cost region with South Korea, both based out of Asia, and gives us the flexibility to either build a lot of our complex circuitry out of South Ko- rea, and maybe do the assembly side in South China, or vice versa; we can also do it all in one country. A lot of it comes down to how we price it for customers, what they're look- ing for strategically in their supply chain, and where they want to build. Dack: Andy, I have taught EPTAC certification courses for PCB design, and we emphasize how critical it is for designers to reach out to the fabrication stakeholders—the people who are doing the work—to incorporate design for manufacturability into the product. I practice what I preach, and this is exactly what I did. We shook hands, I presented Guy with a chal- lenge, he took the information with him, and within the week, the team at SEP provided us with a solution that helped our design process to point toward DFM/DFT. Guy, tell us about that and why it's so important. Martindale: Over the years, we've come to re- alize that a lot of OEM companies have the functions of hardware design and software de- sign, including the fabrication portion of it. I work with clients and look for opportunities to bridge the gap between the two. The design of a circuit, whether it's rigid or flex, can be the best circuit and design that you have out there, but if you can't manufacture it, especial- ly when you are on the production side of it, you have a problem; more often than not, we see this conundrum when working with differ- ent customers. We often see tremendous op- portunities if we get in early on the design— the R&D and prototyping side of it. What you brought to the table was instant- ly a fit because it said that you had a custom application and a problem that you needed to go solve. That's where we say, "How can we take your current design, prototype it, and then scale it to volume without redesigning the whole part? The key is to connect with a cus- tomer at the concept stage to consider and de- fine DFM for each phase of the project. That's where I spent a lot of my time with customers on the engineering side. Then, we're looking at the total cost of ownership and not just what the price looks like on a PO. Dack: And for anyone new to flex design, there are a lot of differences to consider over rigid board PCB design. Standard, rigid FR-4 designs go to standard assembly lines for parts place- ment and then singulation. But in the world of hybrid flex structures, it's not so easy. In