What to Include in Your PCB Fabrication Documentation Package?
When you finally complete your PCB design and you are ready to send it off for fabrication, you need to make sure that you include all of the documentation. If you leave any of this out of the package, you risk having an incomplete product halting the entire process.
To help you with this, we have put together some of the things that you need to include in your PCB fabrication documentation package. Keep reading if you’d like to find out more.
How To Gather It
One of the things that you need to remember when designing your PCB is to make notes of the documentation as you go. This will help you to remember everything that you need, and you won’t miss out important documents.
Of course, with Gerber PCB software, you can collate these files as you go, saving you time at the end of your project. Make sure that you are using the most up to date PCB design software if you want to send the complete package.
What To Include
Firstly, you are going to need to make sure that you include the Gerber data as well as any other types of data that you have used in your PCB design. Then, you will need to include any sort of fabrication instructions that might include the surface finish, finished copper weight, board outline, slot and hole sizes and much more.
Don’t forget to add the bill of materials which should normally include the description, the quantities, reference designators and the manufacturer part number. If you miss out any of these important features, then you risk having your PCB made faulty.
Why Send Documentation?
If you are planning on having someone else manufacture your product then you need to make sure that they know exactly what they are doing. This is why you need to put together all of this documentation and make sure that everything is included.
The panelization is what actually drives the manufacturing process and if you don’t have a completed panelization element to your PCB design then you are going to encounter some problems. The manufacturer will need to think about things like the layer stack, the drill files and the PCB outline when bringing the design to life.
Final Verdict
There are so many different things that you are going to need to include in your PCB documentation for fabrication. Don’t leave anything to chance, make sure to make use of some of the best software out there if you want to create this sort of documentation as you work.
This will speed up the entire process and ensure that your manufacturer knows what they are supposed to be doing.
Consider everything that we have discussed in this article and you should be able to come up with the completed files. Don’t forget to include the bill of materials and all of the important fabrication instructions.
