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42 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2025 If you have read any of my earlier columns, you know I am passionate about helping designers design for the reality of manufactur- ing. Designing for manufacturability (DFM) is a team sport. DFM is a design process that looks forward to the manufacturing process and integrates with it so that manufacturing requirements and capabilities can be accu- rately reflected in the design work. Expanding the team concept to include the designer and the manufacturer creates better products. Here are some practical tips for fos- tering seamless communication and avoiding costly errors. Involving Manufacturers Earlier Prevents Downstream Issues Connect the Dots by Matt Stevenson, ASC SUNSTONE CIRCUITS Picking a Design Tool ere are multiple design tool types for creating DFM-optimized designs, including: • Standalone DFM clients • Web-based DFM clients • Interactive DFM tools Standalone and web-based DFM clients are generally referred to as back-end DFM tools. While these tools oen have the best perfor- mance and ability to find DFM rule-set vio- lations, they can also be a bottleneck in the design process. Fixing design flaws gets expo- nentially more expensive the later they're