In our recent industry survey, we asked over 600 engineers and buyers to share tips and advice with their fellow engineers. The response was incredible! Below are the comments provided by engineers spanning all types of industries, years of experiences and different skill levels. We hope you find the information shared as valuable as we did.

General Tips

Communicate with your fabrication and assembly house.
Don’t push technology limits.
Do it right the first time.
Keep it simple.
Make fewer mistakes (good luck with that).
Base off a previous design where possible.
Use common parts and modular design blocks.
Make a paper doll. Print out the layers and the parts and confirm the sizes of everything.
Prototype new concepts separately before combining them into larger PCBs.
Learn IPC Standards.
If possible, use large packages with exposed pins to prototype. Use small packages and non-leaded parts on rev 2 or 3.

Design for Manufacturing

Run a DFM test on your board.
Plan around your vendor’s capabilities.
Find vendors who can make what you design.
Don’t use the absolute process minimums.
Avoid blind/buried vias wherever possible.
Know how your assembly shop will dismantle your panel.
Keep copper away from board edges.
Don’t put vias in pads. Try to avoid VIPPO.
Minimize lamination cycles.
Minimize layer count.
Review layer artwork in gerber viewer layer by layer.

Design for Assembly

Run a DFA test on your board.
Avoid ultra-small components (01005, 0201, Chip-Scale Packages, etc.) whenever possible.
Know how process steps work.
Double-check part library footprints.
Choose easily sourced parts where possible.

Flexibility

If you need a lot of parts with limited availability, place additional unpopulated land patterns (for example, a crystal that might be available in 0402 and 0201 footprints or a microcontroller that is available in both BGA and QFN packages).
Can you reuse different circuit blocks in your future designs?

Cost

It might be cheaper to use heavy copper if you can reduce trace width, shrink PCB real estate, and fit more boards per panel.
Don’t use hand-soldered components, or solder them yourself after delivery.
Know what process minimums increase cost (e.g. 6 mil trace/space is 1x cost increase, 2 mil trace/space is 3x cost increase).
Prototype onshore and mass-produce offshore.
Limit the amount of “touch labor” required. Design for machine production lines.

Deadlines

Plan to finish a day or two before you submit your files to the fab house.
You sometimes need a good night’s sleep to realize and correct small mistakes before becoming big problems.

Test

Put all of the ICs on one side of your board and all of the test points on the other.
Schedule debugging immediately upon receipt of the product.
Put testpoints everywhere on a prototype. You can use them as jumpers.
Add series resistors at important sections for easy debug during prototype/production.

Signal Integrity

Pay attention to when trace impedance matters and when it doesn’t.
Know where your signal return paths are.
Use ground return vias near signal vias.
Minimize loop area.