The Projects:
One of our customers is in the ruggedized notebook PC market, and he’s always in need of a new peripheral that can be cleanly, ruggedly, and reliably integrated into his systems. Usually that means a careful PCB layout for something like a LoRaWAN transceiver, a GPS unit, etc. Frequently we’re dealing with entire modules, not individual components, when we do layout. And that often presents challenges with heatsinking, grounding, or odd mechanical integration.
What We Do: Working with Odd Requirements
Modules frequently have some strange requirements for just where poured copper may be for grounding and heatsinking as well as where soldermask can and cannot be. Additionally, when you’re working with something as physically large and potentially as thick as a module, manufacturability is a concern, since it can take a great deal of heat to get the module to reflow solder properly underneath. But with that much heat, it’s easy to create a giant molten pool of solder under the module — and have it go everywhere and short out everything. Choosing where to put copper, where to put soldermask, and how to cut a stencil becomes critical to making it all go together correctly.
What We Do
We work around the complex heat dissipation and manufacturability problems — as well as the tight mechanical constraints — to find a way to put a complete module on a PCB such that it’s connected with good solder joints without running the risk of reflow soldering sending metal into places it shouldn’t go.
What We Do: Design for Volume Manufacture
Lots of people can build one PCB at a time. Certainly we can — and we do when the objective is to debug circuits or provide a platform for one or two software writers. But translating that to mass manufacture is a whole different thing, and it requires an understanding of how PCB’s and PCBA’s are made. We maintain very tight relations with several bare circuit board fabricators as well as contract manufacturers of finished assemblies, so we’re thinking about production even when we’re prototyping. Because even NASA made more than one Saturn V rocket.