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Low Volume PCB Assembly Defined

The manufacturing process for printed circuit boards consists of three parts. These are board fabrication, component procurement, and PCB assembly. The optimization of these three manufacturing activities depends upon the synchronization between the equipment and processes used by your contract manufacturer (CM) and your design. In fact, there is a direct proportionality between the quality of your boards and the incorporation of your CM’s DFM rules and guidelines. For production, low-volume or high-volume, strict adherence to DFM and DFA is necessary to achieve the highest yield rate and lowest production costs.

Irrespective of the level of development or production, the fabrication of your board is likely to remain the same unless design changes dictate otherwise. Assembly, on the other hand, may vary based on whether you are working on the prototype (or refining your design) or producing boards for delivery. There are cases when production levels may be low-volume. For example, when manufacturing critical or special purpose PCBAs for aerospace, medical devices, industrial, automotive, or military PCBAs. However, low volume PCB assembly, as defined below, is an essential part of all board development.

Low volume PCB assembly is the mounting of components on a relatively small number of bare boards, which may range from a handful to 250 or less.

Using Low Volume PCBA to Prove Your Design
For all circuit board development, there are essentials of good PCB design which should be instituted. For assembly, in addition to smart component placement decisions, you should be aware of the various options available to help expedite the proving of your design that is commonly referred to as prototyping or the design⇒build⇒test iteration process. These options can be classified as part of a sequential or parallel prototyping strategy.

Prototyping Options for Low Volume PCB Assembly
Sequential
A sequential prototyping strategy where a single or a small number of design changes are incorporated and tested each cycle is the most common approach to design verification.

Parallel
Parallel prototyping can be used to reduce or minimize the number of manufacturing runs required. This is done by applying multiple design changes to a small number of boards and then testing all of the variants prior to the next manufacturing run. These variants are applied to assembly only and all of the bare boards are similarly fabricated.

Basic introduction