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Notes from the floor

Technical writing about the parts of manufacturing that decide whether a board survives: inspection, design for manufacture and materials handling. Written by the people who do it, not by a content team.

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The PA-4M controller processor seated on a populated board, its package covering every one of its joints
RenderThe processor at the centre of the board. Every joint holding it down sits underneath the package, where no optical inspection reaches.

Why we X-ray every BGA, not a sample

A ball grid array hides hundreds of joints beneath the package, where no optical inspection can reach.

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Fine-pitch components placed across a board, with pads, vias and copper routing visible
RenderFine-pitch placement on the PA-1995 controller. Pad geometry, thermal relief and test access are all decided long before a board reaches this point.

What a DFM review actually catches

Almost every respin we see was avoidable, and almost all of them were visible in the design file.

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A fully populated controller board seen from above, dense with integrated circuits and capacitors
RenderA fully placed controller. Every moisture-sensitive part on it has a floor-life budget that was tracked before it ever reached the line.

Moisture-sensitive devices, and why floor life decides the reflow

A perfectly designed board, placed perfectly, can still fail at reflow because of something that happened to a component weeks earlier in a stockroom.

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