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When you have your printed circuit board design manufactured, you want to get the best quality board built without any unpleasant surprises in cost. There are however some unintentional errors that can happen in design that could drive those costs up. Here are the top 5 PCB assembly cost drivers that you should consider while still in design.

Your product will never have the functionality you require unless you build a great proof-of-concept (POC). This design phase may end with a somewhat crude board that won’t resemble your final product, but it gives you a chance to focus on designing the functionality you want in a final product. If you can carefully move through each design iteration while obeying important DFM requirements, your functional prototype and the final product will be of high quality and manufacturable at scale.

For years, electronic components have been soldered onto printed circuit boards using solder with a lead base. To protect the environment from exposure to lead and other harmful substances, regulations are now in place for certain areas to restrict their use. Here’s more information on what lead free PCB manufacturing is, and why it is important.

Component shortages can happen for a number of reasons, and while some of those can be planned for, others often sneak up behind us when we aren’t expecting them. Here are some of the reasons why the parts you need may be in short supply.

To keep these electronics from being affected by external electromagnetic interference (EMI), or affecting each other, automotive electronics today have to meet specific electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) requirements. To do this, electronics designers for automotive products have to understand what those requirements are, and how best to design for them. Here is a little more information on how you can be prepared for designing to the EMI/EMC standards for automotive electronic components.

In the world of PCB design and manufacturing, the third party contract manufacturer serves an important role. Electronics manufacturers usually have the engineering expertise to design the printed circuit boards, the technical skills to assemble their final products, and the sales and marketing team to sell them. What they don’t have though is the skill, experience, and facilities to manufacture the circuit boards. By using a PCB CM for this task, they can avoid the overhead of PCB manufacturing, allowing them to focus on their core competencies such as engineering and marketing of their products.