Design for manufacturability
The concept exists in almost all engineering disciplines, but the implementation differs widely depending on the manufacturing technology.
DFM will allow potential problems to be fixed in the design phase which is the least expensive place to address them.
DFM focuses on anticipating potential fabrication issues and proactively modifying chip layouts and circuits to mitigate their impact.
Background As semiconductor technology scales to smaller nodes, transistors and interconnects become incredibly dense and sensitive to subtle variations in the manufacturing process.
DFM aims to minimize the impact of these variations, improving yield and making chip manufacturing more cost-effective.
The low hanging fruit is minimizing the number of operations (flip of the part) to create significant savings.
Typically, the law of diminishing returns presents itself at volumes of 100–300 because set-up times, custom tooling and fixturing can be amortized into the noise.
In the case of aluminum as an example, bar stock and plate are the two most common forms from which machined parts are made.
A significant contributing factor to the cost of a machined component is the geometric tolerance to which the features must be made.
The volume and shape of the material to be removed as well as how fast the tools can be fed will determine the machining time.
There are instances when this method could cause calendar delays since it consumes many hours of additional work such as the case of the need to prepare for design review presentations and documents.
To address this, it is proposed that instead of periodic inspections, organizations could adopt the framework of empowerment, particularly at the stage of product development, wherein the senior management empowers the project leader to evaluate manufacturing processes and outcomes against expectations on product performance, cost, quality and development time.
[8] Experts, however, cite the necessity for the DFI because it is crucial in performance and quality control, determining key factors such as product reliability, safety, and life cycles.
A common characteristic of additive manufacturing methods, such as fused deposition modeling, is the need for temporary support structures for overhanging part features.
Parts can be designed for additive manufacturing by eliminating or reducing the need for temporary support structures.
