1. Kick-off Meeting

A Lead Designer/PM will be assigned to your project once we’ve received the Purchase Order. The kickoff meeting is an opportunity to do a full review of the project scope, discuss specific details, and answer any questions either party may have.

2. Library Development

Our dedicated Library team begins the process of creating and managing the symbols and footprints used in your PCB design. This involves creating schematic symbols, PCB footprints, and 3D models for each electronic component. If required, we can work with customer provided libraries and help manage changes.

3. Component Placement

This is the process of arranging the electronic components on the PCB in a way that meets your design requirements. The placement process considers factors such as signal integrity, power delivery, thermal management, and mechanical constraints.

4. Critical Routing

Critical routing involves routing the most important signals first. These signals include power, ground, and high-speed signals. The critical routing process ensures that these signals have the shortest and most direct paths between components.

5. Routing

Routing the traces between components is a critical step in the process and we work closely with you to ensure the routing meets your requirements. The routing process must consider factors such as signal integrity, power delivery, thermal management, and mechanical constraints.

6. Documentation

This step includes finalizing and getting customer approval on schematic diagrams, fabrication and assembly drawings & notes, title blocks, formatting, etc. to ensure that these meet your specific requirements. The documentation process ensures that the design can be easily understood and manufactured.

7. Valor/DFM Analysis

Once approved and signed-off on, all layout projects go through our standard Valor/DFM analysis utilizing the Valor NPI suite of tools. This involves analyzing the design for manufacturing issues such as board complexity, drill sizes, and tolerances. The Valor/DFM analysis process ensures that the design can be manufactured efficiently and cost-effectively.

8. Deliverables Package

FREEDOMCAD prides itself on having one of the most consistent and complete deliverables packages in the industry. Rather than have our designers generate this data, we have a dedicated Valor/DFM team that generates a standard package with all of the files required by manufacturers. This includes the board file/database itself, gerbers, ODB++, xy data, pick & place files, etc. An example dataset can be viewed here.