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Easy and fast DFM analysis now available for PCB designers

By Shirley Segev

PCB designers face a lot of challenges. On one hand, the design must fulfill the electrical functionality requirements. On the other hand, it has to be manufacturable.

For everyone involved, discovering once production begins that a design is not manufacturable is a nightmare scenario. The design and engineering loop must be repeated, the boards need to be manufactured again. And we all know how that nightmare ends – with lost material and lost time. Ultimately, the order could be canceled, or the unhappy customer might not return.

DFM analysis of design files is an absolute must-have. But clarifying the DFM with a PCB manufacturer is time-consuming. After sending PCB design files to the manufacturer, it usually takes several days to get feedback. By then, most designers are working on some different projects, requiring them to pivot back and dig in again to the original project.

PCBflow offers designers an easy, fast and accurate way to run their design through comprehensive DFA analysis for specific manufacturers – with immediate results. No more waiting days for feedback. Simple to use, it empowers any PCB designer to check every design against different manufacturers constraint sets. The interactive report guides the designer to any violation the system has found. It is also available as a PDF, for sharing.

As a web-based service, PCBflow requires no hardware or software installation, and no special training is needed. This makes it ideal even for designers at small and mid-size companies with limited IT capabilities. It is hosted on a secure cloud-based platform, keeping all data safe.

See exactly how easy and fast it is to use PCBflow:

Siemens CT uses PCBflow to run DFA analysis

We speak from experience

It’s so easy to use, and yet so powerful. Consider the experience of our own experts, here at Siemens, who are far from strangers to DFM analysis:

Siemens Corporate Technology (CT) runs experiments on advanced technologies and assemble prototypes for various Siemens business units around the world. After using PCBflow on their designs for some time, Siemens CT found that with PCBflow, DFM testing time was very short, only minutes, even for highly complex HDI designs. It is not only fast, it also ensures high quality:

A manual check always includes the risk of overlooking things. But, using this tool, you have an automatic iteration between the PCB fabricator on one hand and the designer on the other hand. The report helps us to improve the process in two ways: first of all, time, but also quality.

Martin Franke, Business Development Electronics, Siemens CT

And that’s what counts.

Try PCBflow now. Upload your design and get the report within seconds, to assure the best-possible manufacturability.

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This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/pcbflow/2021/11/22/easy-and-fast-dfm-analysis-now-available-for-pcb-designers/