Resource for PCB Designers: Free BOM Generator Tool
In the realm of Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design and manufacturing, ensuring a clean and efficient Bill of Materials (BOM) is crucial for a smooth production process. Enter Sierra's free BOM Checker tool, a valuable asset in the PCB design process.
This automated tool is designed to verify and refine your BOM, enhancing manufacturability, reducing costs, and improving assembly reliability. It achieves this by identifying issues such as part count redundancies, solder joint integrity risks, and assembly complications.
Key capabilities and benefits include:
- Validation of component placements, such as fiducial usage and recognition of package footprints, especially for BGA and leadless packages like QFN.
- Guidance on optimal component arrangement, recommending placing leadless packages on only one PCB side to simplify assembly and X-ray inspection.
- Detection of potential assembly issues like solder joint problems by encouraging design features such as boundary scan (JTAG) and built-in self-test (BIST) for ICs.
- Recommendations for BOM refinement to reduce overall cost by minimizing redundant parts and selecting components that ease cleaning and regulatory compliance (e.g., RoHS-compliant components).
By providing these automated checks and suggestions, Sierra’s BOM Checker tool supports design-for-manufacturability (DFM) principles, helping PCB designers create reliable, low-cost, and production-friendly boards.
The BOM Checker also ensures the consistency of the reference designator and quantity columns, corrects issues before pricing, and confirms which parts are available, showing pricing and lead-times. It also compares Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPNs) on the BOM with component distributors, informs users of long lead-time components, and gives the option to change to a component with shorter lead-times.
Moreover, the tool allows editing of incorrect MPNs and highlights duplicate reference designators. If no errors are found, users can resolve the issue, mark as DNI, or remove.
For those seeking more in-depth knowledge about PCB materials, Sierra offers a PCB Material Design Guide. This comprehensive guide covers basic properties of dielectric materials, signal loss in PCB substrates, copper foil selection, and key considerations for choosing PCB materials. The guide is a 40-minute read with 30 pages and 9 chapters, and is available for download.
To experience the BOM Checker first-hand, visit the demo link: https://protoexpress.wistia.com/medias/z179h8s5n6. By ensuring your BOM is clean, the BOM Checker saves time and eliminates hassle during the manufacturing process. So, don't forget to download and save your revised BOM before checking component availability and pricing.
- The BOM Checker tool, a vital component in data-and-cloud-computing systems, aids PCB designers by providing automated checks and suggestions, promoting design-for-manufacturability principles.
- This technology-driven tool also supports users by ensuring consistency in the reference designator and quantity columns, correcting issues before pricing, and offering alternatives for longer lead-time components.
