As devices become smaller and faster, it's becoming less and less possible to separate the design and manufacturing functions in engineering.

• With small, high speed, or extreme low-power devices; manufacturability has to be addressed during the initial prototyping phase.

• Recognizing the need for quality prototyping, Focus Embedded maintains active partnerships with circuit board manufacturers and PCB assembly houses so we can determine manufacturability early in the design cycle.

At Focus Embedded, designing electronic circuits doesn’t happen in a vacuum. From concept to completion, we’re constantly considering how our product development services can be made to dovetail with the efforts of a contract manufacturer.

And sometimes, that CM is us.

In 2007, at the inception of our company, we began working informally with eTech (now a part of Micross), a partner in the rapid prototyping contract manufacturing business. In 2010, this became a more formal partnership, and for nearly a decade we shared space with them at our joint R&D facilities. One reason for moving in – other than our obvious mutual need for industrial floor and office space – was that we could do design work, PCB purchasing, and components procurement and then tap eTech to do the job of assembly. But another was to keep ourselves close to the manufacturing floor in order to maintain our discipline to design devices that can actually be built.

By the time eTech had been acquired by Micross (who elected to exit the circuit board manufacturing business), we’d also built a strong relationship with Lone Wolf Assemblers, where we enjoy a similarly close relationship and where we’re always welcome guests on the production floor.

As a result, we’re able to offer our customers complete turnkey prototype design and manufacturing. Additionally, because we do procurement and Lone Wolf does assembly, we can offer prototype manufacturing by itself without any design involved if you don’t need it. Commonly, we also do PCB layout and prototype PCBA building as a turnkey service, meaning you can send us your schematics and get a completed PCBA back with one-stop shopping. Further, along with our partners we offer both circuit board repair, BGA reballing, and the development of interposer PCB’s to correct footprint and wiring errors on pre-existing PCB’s.

Because this means that we’re effectively in the prototype manufacturing business ourselves, we’re highly cognizant of what makes a manufacturable product and what doesn’t. And because we have easy access to our manufacturing shops, we get feedback from them early and often — whether it’s information related to standard 0.062” FR4 electronic printed circuit boards or something more exotic like flex or rigid-flex circuitry. The result is that when we’re doing design work, we’re usually taking at least one prototyping cycle out of the design effort – and totally eliminating any “redesign for manufacturability” effort that might need doing after the fact.

But if you’d just like to have us do your prototype assembly, we can certainly do as much or as little of that as you wish.

Yes, Focus Embedded has always done and will always do design work.

But we do a whole lot more.

Even with the best design, it's handy to have the design engineer in close contact with the manufacturer when production starts.

• With good design, there aren't that many surprises in a first production run. But when you go from qty=5 to qty=500, a few little things will inevitably show up.

• If you're caught up in selling and marketing your new product, it can be immensely helpful to be able to outsource first production until you're ready to take on one more problem yourself.

One of the toughest problems for a startup company with its first product is getting from a proof of concept and a prototype to a real pilot production run.  There’s quite a lot to know about PCB manufacturing and assembly, and as experienced PCB designers, we know quite a lot. But on those very first volume runs of a product, issues are bound to arise.  That’s when it’s handy to have the both the circuit design and PCB design engineer on hand resolving questions, taking notes, and writing instructions for the assemblers based on their feedback.  Nothing so tests a design’s manufacturability as its first trip down an assembly line in “quantity = 500.”
 
For this reason, in addition to prototype manufacturing services, Focus Embedded can make your life easier by handling the printed circuit board assembly done on your pilot production run.
 
We’ve partnered with several bare printed circuit board fabrication businesses, and we share our office spae with eTech-Web, a pre-eminent printed circuit board assembly service. The result is that we can get you through that all-important first production run.  After one or two passes, or as quantities start to creep up into the thousands, we’re likely to have every question a manufacturer could ask resolved; and at that point, we can point you to any of a number of competent “high volume” assembly shops – or hand off materials to your manufacturer of choice.
 
But if you’re completely new to the business of electronics manufacture, we can buy you the breathing room to market and sell your product – and perhaps get that all-important “first mover advantage” in your market space – without having to worry about where your product is coming from.
 
We want to see you succeed, and if navigating the waters of pilot production is getting in the way of something more important in your business model, Focus Embedded can take that problem off your plate until you’re ready to deal with it.