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Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1544975
36 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2026 H A P PY'S T EC H TA L K # 4 8 The Nature of the Problem Experienced manufacturing personnel are becom- ing increasingly scarce, and developing that ex- pertise takes years. In many cases, manufacturing is also geographically distant, making knowledge transfer even more difficult. As a result, input is often reduced to opinion rather than data, making it difficult to defend or apply consistently. While this might be a viable solution for small, vertically integrated companies with extensive manufacturing experience, printed circuit packag- ing has advanced significantly. Not only is surface mounting now very fine-pitch, but we have ball grid arrays, flip-chip, and chip-scale packages. These challenges have led to widespread adop- tion of DFM/A approaches, but they remain frag- mented. They focus on separate domains, ranging from minimization of assembly and substrate costs, optimization of printed circuit design and layout, and analysis of test coverage. The Opportunity of Design for Manufacturing (DFM/A) There are four compelling reasons why predictive engineering is essential to the design of electronic products: 1. Products have become increasingly complex. Not only must products meet higher cus- tomer expectations, but they must also be environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, and resource-conserving in ever-shrinking prod- uct lifecycles. 2. Minimizing cost is imperative. DFM/A has been shown in benchmarking and case stud- ies to reduce assembly costs by 35% 1 , PWB costs by 25%, 2 and 75% of a product's manu- facturing cost is determined by its design drawings and specifications. 3. In the electronic product design process, 60% of the manufacturing cost is determined in the first stages of design when only 35% of the design cost has been expended. The product definition process includes specifica- tions and partitioning. This is a technology tradeoff analysis (the balance of loss and gain in various domains' performance vs. costs). 4. Manufacturing should be linked to design and R&D through a common language that Figure 1: Current product data movement. Figure 2: For the digital twin of a PCB, there should be simulations and tradeoffs that cover all the domains that a user finds critical, including costs, manufacturability, density, signal integrity, and reliability.