Design Subtopics

Matt Wuensch, Mentor Graphics, promotes collaboration across PCB design, prototype development, and electronics assembly. The more this collaboration transpires between teams, the more potential for cost savings and less potential for problems in new product introduction (NPI).

In this three-part series, Vern Solberg will review flip chip packaging, the increased applications for flip chip in product design, and substrate and PCB design challenges for fine-pitch array-configured flip-chip applications. Part I explains how flip chips are created and how to work with these devices, small and large.

These new products include circuit design software, free evaluation kits, better user functionalities, and a Website that connects designers and suppliers.

With the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) fresh in our minds, product design is the focus of today’s SMT interview with Erich Buergel, GM, Mechanical Analysis Division, and John Isaacs, director of market development, Mentor Graphics. Once in SMT production, each PCB is something of a standalone product — printed, populated with components, reflowed, etc., with the goal of most closely matching set circuit board assembly specifications. However, in the design field, a PCB is one of many interacting elements in a complex environment, such as a high-power gaming system, a ruggedized cell phone, a server farm, a slim flatscreen TV, etc. Designing each PCB without reference to outside elements (enclosure, movement, operating environment) would fail endless prototypes and waste design time. By integrating package/PCB/system/building design, Mentor is hoping to encourage further inter-disciplinary collaboration and more product simulation pre-prototype. When Mentor Graphics acquired Flomerics late in 2008, they entered the thermal analysis market decisively. A little over a year into the acquisition, Mentor’s Mechanical Analysis Division offers FloTHERM for PCB design, FloVENT for buildings, and FloEFD — thermal analysis embedded into mechanical design. Each of these lines is based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis and each works together in a comprehensive design flow, preventing costly errors caused by over-the-wall electro/mechanical/thermal design.

Research and Markets released “A Global Strategic Business Report: PCBs,” analyzing the global market for printed circuit boards (PCBs) in US$ million. The major markets analyzed include the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and rest of world (ROW), with forecasts through 2015. It identifies major geographical and technological changes coming for the PCB fab industry.

Express Manufacturing, Inc. (EMI), an electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, is building a line of products for OEMs to promote health. The company recently obtained ISO 13485 certification for medical device manufacturing and invested in Fuji XPF chip shooters for medical electronics production.

EPIC, the European Photonics Industry Consortium, released “LEDs: The 2009 Market Review.” The report, which is distributed exclusively to EPIC members, tracks the response of the lighting and display industries to one of the most difficult economic crises in recent years. HB-LED and OLED unit production figures as well as revenues have been summarized for major players around the world for the two-year period of 2008 and 2009.

Bob Willis, a consultant who has been providing electronics assembly training over 20 years, will launch a new Website-based training service.

Lightspeed Manufacturing has moved from its old factory in Methuen, Mass. to a new 60,000-sq-ft modern manufacturing facility at 135 Ward Hill Avenue in Haverhill, MA. Lightspeed is a contract manufacturer of printed circuit electronics assemblies that has experienced continued growth.