IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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38 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2026 defines producibility as an intrinsic charac- teristic of a design. It is not a manufacturing inspection milestone. Producibility scores provide a non-opinionated basis for a team approach that results in a quality, cost-com- petitive product. What they all have in common is metrics. But the design community is suspicious when the entire system is not considered. They are afraid of sub- optimization, where the cost of a particular domain is lowered, but the total system cost goes up. The industry does not lack DFM/A tools or metrics; it lacks a way to integrate them across the full de- sign and manufacturing process. Digital Twins Digital twins (DT) enable systematic trade-off analy- sis across multiple design and manufacturing do- mains. It brings together product definition, fabri- cation, and assembly considerations into a single trade-off environment. A digital twin of the performance and costs (yields) based on predictive models and simula- tions can be coded to allow the designer to see the effects of various parameters on the PCB with- out ever actually building it. As shown in Figure 3, this allows the user to improve on any product development or product change process. One key element that's missing is the global assignment of custom ASIC pin locations. This would help to reduce PWB and assembly complex- ity and costs, while assuring better system perfor- mance and the best "time-to-profits." The DT framework (Figure 3) imports critical met- rics and data from manufacturing through the PDM database. 3 The DT software architecture of tradeoff models and supporting software provides the user with global information. As features are selected, they can be placed back in the PDM database. Selec- tion of layout factors, sizes, and design rules can be used to create technology files that drive mod- ern CAD programs. Digital Twins' IPC-2551 IPC-2551 is the digital twin standard for assembly automation that provides all DT developers with the information and guidance necessary to under- stand a full DT implementation. It also provides information and guidance on how manufacturers can benefit from digital twins, how to assess DT readiness levels, and how to prepare a factory of any size or production volume to implement a full DT approach to its factory and/or products. The effect is that physical prototypes of any de- scription can be avoided, including trial and error, resulting in vastly reduced lead-time, elimination of mistakes, and lower costs. Figure 3: Proposed digital twin framework. H A P PY'S T EC H TA L K # 4 8