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hello i'm Pat McGoff of mentor graphics
today i'd like to share with you have valor's npi software can be used to
identify yield and reliability issues during the design stage
valor npi software is mentor graphics design for manufacturability
for printed circuit boards
npi stands for new product introduction
and that's the stage at which our customers benefit most from our software
it's during the introduction of a new product into the market that our
customers benefit by identifying issues early on so they don't see them
downstream in the design through manufacturing process
dfm represents much more than design for manufacturability
of course a represents design for manufacturing
design for fabrication
design for assembly
design for test
and design for quality
you can even say it represents designed for cost
because each of these represents tradeoffs that can affect the cost of
the printed circuit board
the subject of yield and reliability fall under the category of design for quality
yield is a measurement of quality in the manufacturing environment
whereas reliability is a measurement of quality in the field
when we speak of manufacturing yield
we strive to achieve one hundred percent pass rate at test
any printed circuit board that does not pass
must either go to some level of re-work in order to make the board functional
or be scrapped
and the more we push the manufacturing process envelope the more difficult it is to achieve
one hundred percent pass rates
in terms of field failures the issues are even more problematic
they can manifest themselves in terms of warranty costs or in the worst of cases
product recalls
and depending on the application of your products used
they can be extremely costly to deal with
this is particularly true in applications such as military aerospace
automotive or medical electronics
not only you have to deal with the cost of repair or replace the product
but in case of product recalls you have to deal with the damage to your company's
reputation
the other thing we have to understand is manufacturing is a process
so defining the manufacturing threshold is somewhat subjective
if you were to ask a fabricator how fine of a feature can you etch
they might answer three mils
if you were to press further and ask them can you etch a 2.9 mil feature
they'd probably ask you how many instances of that you have before giving
you an answer
that's not that they can't etch features finer than three mils
its just that they found that their yield rate falls off rapidly at that point
and so in order for them to take on the job that have to charge you substantially
more to cover their scrap cost
what we've done with valor npi is given the designer the ability to use
these manufacturing process tolerances
within the dfm tool set
that way they're able to identify where they're pushing the manufacturing
threshold
and if they can modify the design to back away from these points they'll have a
more robust design
one that has higher yield in manufacturing
the high reliability in the field
over the years we've developed almost eight hundred dfm checks
all based upon customer request
many of these checks are meant to identify yield and reliability issues
and because dfm is manufacturing facing
we are looking at your design the same way your suppliers word
so any yield reliability issues that they would see downstream now with valor
npi we can identify upfront in the design stage
one issue that affects both yield and reliability
is the solderability of a printed circuit board
you want to make sure that you have solid solder joints
on all components on the printed circuit board
and it's only with the valor parts library a dedicated library for dfm analysis that
you're able to assure the solderability of a design without having to go through
all the timely and costly physical prototyping
we can even provide you with visibility for the fit for all alternate parts qualified
for one of your designs
that way no matter which one is actually sourced you can be sure to fit within
the design
of course the best time to do dfm is concurrent with design
by integrating with expedition pcb
you're able to identify the yield and reliability issues while you're still in
the layout process
that way you can release data to manufacturing that's right the first time
and avoid all the costs associated with the revision spins
with the latest version of valor npi
you can now launch to the dfm application directly from expedition pcb
once the yield and reliablity issues are found in valor npi
you can easily and automatically synchronize with expedition
so you can make the desired changes to the design
thank you for your time today hopefully have been able to show you a few ways
the valor npi software
can help you identify yield and reliability issues during design
for more information please visit mentor.com or click on the link below