Assembly Methods for Printed Circuit Boards

Design-for-manufacturing (DFM) is a well known term and an essential part of the design process. Not as well known but just as important is the concept of design-for-assembly (DFA). If you optimize your circuit board so that it is produced flawlessly, yet make it so the board can only be assembled by tedious hand soldering, then you have saved cents per board on manufacturing just to increase the cost by dollars per board on assembly. To avoid this, both the manufacturing and the assembly need to be taken into account during the design phase. Fortunately, there is generally no need to compromise between manufacturing or assembly and in most cases you should be able to design a board that is both highly manufacturable and easily assembled. The first step in being able to design-for-assembly is to understand the assembly process. This process will be discussed in depth to show how a board goes from an unpopulated printed circuit board (PCB) to a final product, ready to be packaged and sent to consumers.