Materials for Electronic Products
Electronics product design and life cycle
Design is a set of specifications for manufacturing
- Predictable
- Accurate
- Repeatable
- Flexible
- Maintainable
- Extensible
Fabrication complexity increase the importance of product design
Semiconductor complexity continues to increase
- Design errors
- Process steps
- Lithography resolution
- Difficulty of yield forecasting
- Lock in relationships to fabrication facility
Complexity of electronic devices continues to increase
- Use of embedded electronics
- Importance of device user interfaces
- Importance of life cycle design approaches
- Evolution of electronics supply chain

Image source: International Roadmap for Semiconductors. ITRS press conference, Dec 2004, 25.
Sources of new designs
- New purposes
- Observations
- Product defects
- Experiences
- Other designs
- New materials
- New technology
- New manufacturing processes
Purposes of design prototyping
- Visual representation
- Study processing techniques
- Study design possibilities
- Study cross-scale coupling of systems that span size scales of several orders of magnitude.
- Function
- Form
- Flow
- Physics
- Fabrication
Types of design prototyping
Design tolerance is the difference between upper and lower limits of a dimension
- Components in product may have different tolerances.
- Tolerance is relative to size of component or product.
There are different types of tolerance levels
Why do we need tolerances for manufacturing?
Does tolerance affect cost of product?
Is it better to have smaller tolerances?
Design principle: Maintain independence of functional requirements
- Modular design
- More choice of materials
- More choice of processing
- Reduce critical failures
- Easier upgrades
- Easier maintenance
- More functional options

Image copyright Bose Inc.
Design principle: Minimize information content of the design
- Mass market
- Minimise errors
- Easier to sell
- Flexible for embedded use

Design principle: Delay product customization steps
- More flexibility for mass market
- Reduce response time for custom changes
- Reduce impact of changes in different markets

Image copyright Dell Computers
Design principle: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler
Quote attributed to
Albert Einstein
- KISS – Keep it simple
- MISS – Make it simple
Design quality is fitness for purpose
- Functionality
- Performance
- Aesthetics
- Skill level

Image copyright Segway Inc.
Conflicts about purpose is often the primary cause of failed products!
Design quality is fitness for standards
- Based on inspection and measurement
- Six Sigma Quality
- ISO 9001:2000

Image copyright Princeton Digital Corp.
Measurement of quality is dependent on the purpose
- Time
- Functionality
- Material
- Process
- Cost
- Flexibility

Image copyright Acer Inc.
Design is fitness for market
- Satisfy user needs
- Industry structure and organizations
- Comparative cost
- Satisfy latent needs

Image copyright Sony Corp.
Design is the source of quality

Image copyright Dalsa Corp.
Product design must factor an increasing number of requirements (concurrent engineering)
- Use standard commercially available components
- Use common parts where possible
- Design for ease of component fabrication
- Design components with tolerances that are within process capability
- Design the product to be foolproof during assembly
- Minimise flexible components
- Design for ease of assembly
- Design for ease of packaging
- Minimise adjustments/calibrations
Design and quality are affected by many factors
- Delivery
- Installation
- Reliability
- Maintainability
- Serviceability
- Human factors
- Upgradeability
- Disposability
Design for assembly (DFA)
- Minimize parts count
- Encourage modular assembly
- Stack assemblies
- Eliminate adjustments
- Eliminate cables
- Use self-fastening parts
- Use self-locating parts
- Eliminate reorientation
- Facilitate parts handling
- Specify standard parts
Methods to manage the quality of manufacturing
Quality control
- Traceability
- Control of components
- Control of processing
- Points of inspection
- Assembly
Quality indicators
Sampling methods
- 100% inspection
- Statistical sampling
Yield is quotient of good outputs to total outputs
- Yield is critical for electronics manufacturing
- Yield loss is due to systematic and random factors
- Manufacturing is a statistical business, yield management is about reduction of loss
The cost of quality

Source: Gallien, J. (2002). Lecture for 15.760B course. MIT.
Product disposal choices

Design for the environment
Design for the environment requires consideration of the
complete product life cycle:
- conception and design
- prototyping
- manufacturing
- sales
- consumption
- end of use
Design for the environment is affected by
changes and feedback from society about:
- input resources
- fit for purpose
- standards
