Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1417991
OCTOBER 2021 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 47 ances, the signal integrity and power integrity; designers don't have to question the correct materials; and everything is in one digital file so if the materials need to be changed there are no ambiguities and no wasted time. In addition, the designer can include approved suppliers, corporate part numbers, and qualified manufacturer part numbers. e standard provides the material properties of the conductors, dielectrics, masks, surface finishes, etc. as well as tooling support for drilled/milled content, including blind/bur- ied vias, back-drill, V-groove, slots, cavities, and more. Also included are the job notes and industry and corporate specifications and compliances. The Digital Thread Used with the IPC Connected Factory eXchange (CFX), IPC-2581 enables the cre- ation of smart factory automation like Indus- try 4.0, a new industrial phase encompassing internet of things (IoT) and smart manufac- turing that relies on interconnectivity, auto- mation, machine learning, and real-time data. IPC-2851 is also the only standard that is part of the IPC-2551 Digital Twin standard that defines the design being built. is is ben- eficial to both the design and manufacturing sides because manufacturing issues are identi- fied before they surface in real time, enabling engineers to make adjustments to the design to avoid them. is improves product quality and yield, and therefore reduces cost for the end customer and accelerates new product intro- duction. A digital thread is possible only with IPC- 2581. It provides everything the designer needs to communicate the build intent to the manu- facturer and, for the manufacturer, everything is received in one file correlated and generated from an intelligent PCB design database to an intelligent IPC-2581 file that is an open XML- based format. is eliminates the time-con- suming and unreliable back-and-forth commu- nication common with legacy formats. Electronically Executable DFM Feedback IPC-2581 also provides electronically exe- cutable DFM feedback. While other formats require feedback data to be shared via elec- tronic paper, IPC-2581 delivers that data in an XML format that can be executed by the design tools and allows the engineer to correlate the feedback with specific items in the design— the tools do the work rather than the designer intervening manually. is can be applied to fabrication DFM analysis feedback as well as assembly DFM analysis feedback. IPC-2581 is a win/win situation. (Figure 6). Figure 6: The single XML file enables the tools to do the work instead of the designer.