-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueLevel Up Your Design Skills
This month, our contributors discuss the PCB design classes available at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. As they explain, these courses cover everything from the basics of design through avoiding over-constraining high-speed boards, and so much more!
Opportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
What’s New at DownStream?
March 21, 2016 | Andy Shaughnessy, PCB Design007Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Since its founding in the uncertain days of 2002, DownStream Technologies has made a name for itself with its line of PCB design post-processing tools. Founder Rick Almeida gives us an update on the latest innovations at DownStream, and he discusses some of the challenges and trends he sees in the PCB design segment.
Andy Shaughnessy: Rick, why don’t you start by telling us about some of the new tools at DownStream.
Rick Almeida: The last few releases of our post-processing tools have been focused in the areas of assembly panel design and DFM. We’ve added large number of new checking routines in DFM. We now have a major release in the works planned for release in late 2016 or early 2017 that focuses on integration between documentation and CAM file verification. This release will modularize our products so that they may be mixed and matched together to create a custom PCB post processing solution based on our customers’ requirements. As part of this release we will be bringing out some new tools in support of IPC-2581 PCB stack-up visualization in both DFMStream and our BluePrint documentation tool. We are also investing in re-writes of some of the core CAM350 functions.
Shaughnessy: What new technologies are you particularly excited about?
Almeida: We are in the process of redefining our panel design and documentation capability. We’ve had a lot of customer input on panel design for both assembly arrays and PCB production and our bringing our panel capabilities together in a new unified panel design tool that understands the various hierarchies associated with PCB panels.
Shaughnessy: Which customer challenges led you to develop these new products?
Almeida: When engineering groups array PCBs for assembly panels, it’s important that they get optimum yield. To do this they must analyze the fit of the assembly panel on the fabrication panel. So the relationship between a one-up PCB, assembly array, and fabrication panel is paramount to determine which trade-offs to make to get the most PCBs on a single panel substrate.
Shaughnessy: How will these new tools help address your customers’ concerns?
Almeida: What we see is a tight coupling of manufacturing know-how embedded into software to help PCB designers and engineers make the right decision for optimum manufacturing execution. So the more manufacturing assistance our tools can provide earlier in the PCB design flow, the better for our customers in preparing the designs to be physically built.
To read this entire article, which appeared in the February 2016 issue of The PCB Design Magazine, click here.
Suggested Items
I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week
04/19/2024 | Marcy LaRont, PCB007 MagazineFor my must-read picks of the week, I’m highlighting Parker Capers, a young professional seeking employment, solid counsel from Dan Beaulieu on what your post-show plan should look like, more information and insight on “chiplets” and the need for secure data transfer standards from columnist Preeya Kuray, as well as Matt Stevenson’s design for reality wisdom. It’s a reminder to download one of our newest books (there are several) you don't want to miss if you are an assembler.
Absolute EMS Champions Collaboration Between Humans and Robots in Modern Manufacturing
04/19/2024 | Absolute EMS, Inc.Absolute EMS, Inc., an award-winning EMS provider of turnkey contract manufacturing services, offers a perfect factory environment that seamlessly blends robotic automation with human expertise.
ZESTRON Welcomes Whitlock Associates as New Addition to their Existing Rep Team in Florida
04/19/2024 | ZESTRONZESTRON, the leading global provider of high-precision cleaning products, services, and training solutions in the electronics manufacturing and semiconductor industries, is thrilled to announce the addition of Whitlock Associates to its esteemed network of sales representatives.
SEMI Applauds U.S. Chips Act Award for Samsung Electronics Facilities to Strengthen Domestic Semiconductor Supply Chain
04/17/2024 | SEMISEMI, the industry association serving the global electronics design and manufacturing supply chain, applauded the United States Department of Commerce’s announcement of a Preliminary Memorandum of Terms for an award under the CHIPS and Science Act to support the expansion of Samsung Electronics’ presence in Texas and the company’s development and production of leading-edge chips.
Ark Electronics Expands Global Manufacturing Factory Network in North America and Europe
04/17/2024 | PRNewswireElectronic Manufacturing Company Ark Electronics recently announced the expansion of its Global Factory Network with the addition of Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS) capabilities in Mexico and Europe.