Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1506834
26 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2023 fabrication process is automated, communi- cation of data exchange has somehow been neglected. Challenge No. 1: Generating Unique IDs One of the challenges behind this is the lack of a practical mechanism to generate unique IDs for each panel and board, as well as con- suming key materials. In the past, these efforts included the use of etched labels and embed- ded RFID devices, but nothing was widely successful. Without IDs, traceability remains, at best, at date or lot level. is limits the effective- ness should quality issues occur. Inner layers of PCBs are frequent contributors to product quality issues, where incorrect, out-of- date materials (or even counter feits of infer ior quality) have been used. It is, aer all, very difficult to inspect the inside of multi- layered PCBs. New tech- nologies, including auto- mated generation of IDs using visual features, are now available for PCBs, with other technologies also evolving to meet this challenge. Solving this challenge in isolation, however, is not enough to make Smart PCB fabrication. Challenge No. 2: Transfer of Data e second key challenge that must be addressed is the very poor, archaic method that prevails in the industry for the transfer of PCB layout data between design and fabrica- tion. ere has been a long and convoluted his- tory dating back to the time that layout shapes were made using a physical plotter with altered dimensions, to compensate for the old-fash- ioned etching process. Engineering practices associated with this type of Gerber data per- sist in an unbelievable 75% of fabrication engi- neering operations today. Such design data is represented in the form of several files, all of which need to be reengineered into a single dataset that is then used to fabricate the PCBs. It takes a great deal of manual effort to trans- late and resolve conflicts in the data, where the fabricator is responsible for any missed issues, as well as to re-compensate for process varia- tions. As such, the engineering reference data needed for context against which operational data is exchanged, based on the IDs of prod- ucts and materials during execution, is oen flawed, inaccurate, and of little use beyond the immediate instance where and when it is collected. is has been the state for the art of PCB fabrication for far too many years. It's easily possible to avoid this compromise, and key to enabling the automation of engineer- ing processes for fabrica- tion, thus reducing mis- t a k e s , c o s t s , a n d l e a d - time. CAM tools are quite evolved but are limited due to the design data compro- mise. e IPC-2581 open standard PCB layout format is available in almost all design tools as standard, which creates a single, true, digital data file (as opposed to analog data in digital format, such as a PDF) that accurately repre- sents the complete design specification of the PCB insofar as manufacturing requires. e use of IPC-2581 enables almost total CAM tool automation. It would appear to be a no-brainer as to why IPC-2581 is not used in all cases, until you realize that something very important was forgotten and that plagues the whole of digital Smart manufacturing. Heads are buried in the sand, as they have been for many years since PCB fabrication moved to remote locations. To make the prod- uct, its design needs to be shared, but this could be appropriated by bad actors. With data shared using old-fashioned analog form, CAM tools are quite evolved but are limited due to the design data compromise.