A list of components, raw materials or assemblies required to complete the end product is known as the Bill of Materials (BOM). BOM is classified into different categories, such as Engineering Bill of Materials, Sales Bill of Materials, Service Bill of Materials and Manufacturing Bill of Materials. The Manufacturing Bill of Materials, known as Manufacturing BOM or MBOM, consists of the list of all the parts and assemblies, including the packaging materials like the coloured boxes. It also incorporates the documentations included, such as the CDs and guides. Everything, that has been used at some or the other point of the manufacturing process has to be mentioned in the Manufacturing BOM. The liquid glue or tape also, if used, is mentioned under the Manufacturing Bill of Materials.

The contents of the Manufacturing Bill of Materials have to be accurate and in detail as much as possible. This helps the manufacturer or the retailer to take decisions on how to make the product reach the customer, cost effectively and efficiently. It also helps in saving much time. The details included in the Manufacturing Bill of Materials helps in other business related solutions such as Materials Resource Planning (MRP), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Manufacturing Execution System (MES).

The Manufacturing Bill of Materials is often compared with the Process Plan since the content of both includes the information regarding the manufacturing process. Though similar to an extent, the Manufacturing Bill of Materials concentrates more on the product, while the Process Plan, as the name suggests, focuses on the process.

The Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment, popularly known as the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS), and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE), were two of the initiatives adopted by the European Union, in order to solve the issues of increasing electronic waste (e-waste), which pose threat to life, health and environment. Each member state of the European Union is bound to abide by the guidelines mentioned in the directives and manufacture RoHS and WEEE compliant products. However, they can resort to take their own measures for implementing the rules.

The RoHS directive restricts the use of certain substances in the manufacture of the Electrical and Electronic Equipments (EEEs). It is commonly known as the lead-free directive, but the use of certain other harmful substances is also prohibited under the RoHS Directive. These include mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and the polybrominated flame retardants such as, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE). These cause harm not only to the environment, but also to the health conditions of the employees in the firm and users of the product.

The WEEE directive assigns the responsibility of managing the e-wastes to the manufacturing firm. It directs the manufacturers to collect the e-waste and make provisions for its reuse or recycle. The obsolete or used electrical and electronic goods also are termed as e-waste. WEEE directive applies to the small and large scale household appliances, electrical and electronic tools, lighting equipments, etc. Some of the medical devices, monitoring and control instruments and IT and telecommunications equipments are, however, exempted from being WEEE compliant.

Computer Aided Design, popularly known as the CAD Design, refers to the use of computer technology for the purpose of designing and drafting in various fields. It is also known as Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CADD). CAD is extensively used in many fields, as a substitute for manual technical and engineering drawings. It is widely applicable in industries such as architecture, aerospace, multimedia, automotive, prosthetics, etc. The major benefit of Computer Aided Designs over the manual drawings is that the designers can complete the designs much faster. As a result, their productivity increases and more works can be completed in less time. The firms benefit much from this as they can finish more work with less labour.

The designs done using the CAD are of high quality and fewer errors are likely to occur when compared to manual drawing. If errors occur, they can easily be corrected and the design can be modified using the computer technology. Moreover, the design can be zoomed in and out for obtaining distinct views of the parts or components of the drawn object. With the CAD software, the designer can scale the image as per the needs and guidelines. In case the designer wants to add additional properties to an object, the Computer Aided Design software provides the option to create such custom properties.

The computer hard drive saves the data drafted with CAD. Hence, the backup is automatically created, which reduces the risk of losing the data. Furthermore, an easy conversion of 2D drawings into 3D is also possible with the use of CAD technology.

Cadence are a leading name in PCB design services. Familiar to PCB layout technicians through such products as their Allegro and OrCAD PCB design tools, they are an invaluable resource to anyone involved with the printed circuit board industry.

The Cadence Allegro PCB design platform is widely used in ASIC and VHDL design, and is constantly being updated and improved to reflect advances in firmware development. Recently, the company announced a new PDN (power delivery network) tool, to correspond with the release of the new Allegro 16.5 platform.

Printed circuit boards have changed drastically in the past 10 years. High-performance field programmable gate array, or FPGA designs have taken the place of older, simpler integrated circuits, with a corresponding increase in clock frequencies. The downside has been a huge increase in power demand, which must be supplied at ever decreasing voltages. The purpose of a PDN is to regulate current distribution between the VRM (voltage regulating module) and the FPGA power supply, optimizing FPGA performance and transceiver signal integrity.

Unveiled at DesignCon 2011, the Allegro PCB Power Delivery Network Analysis tool is flexible, accurate and fully integrated with both Allegro PCB SI and Allegro PCB Designer. Providing a unique tool for high speed PCB design and power delivery analysis, engineers can now edit and analyse their PCB layouts with no need of translation to a second system. Integrating PCB design, signal integrity and PDN analysis into one environment is a boon to anyone involved with digital signal processing or FPGA design.

We at Enventure Technologies provide a wide range of PCB design services, using the latest Allegro and OrCAD PCB software.