The Common Parts Library

The two most common causes of delay in small volume manufacturing here at Screaming Circuits (and presumably, others like us) are component availability, and footprint mismatches.

We don’t substitute parts without your approval for a number of reasons. I’ve written about those reasons a few times before. (Here, here, and here.)

Incorrect footprints can lead to a host of headaches as well. (Read more here, here, and here.)

Until recently, I haven’t seen a lot of progress toward solving these problems for the hordes of engineers that don’t have big support departments at their disposal. In fact, with the proliferation of newer, and small, component packages, and evolution of the supply chain, it’s really gotten worse.

However, there are a couple of Knights in Shining Armor riding in to try and solve both problems. The Common Parts Library (CPL), created by Octopart, aims to create a list of components with the highest probability of being available and staying available (there are no guarantees where component supply is concerned).

The other exciting entrant is SnapEDA. SnapEDA has a massive, and growing, library of component footprints. I’ve used their footprints with good success for high pin-count devices, and other parts with complex packages. It can save a lot of time and give better confidence that all of the pins go to the right functions.

Duane Benson
Map makers put fake roads in as copyright traps
These folks don’t do that. Nice.

http://blog.screamingcircuits.com/

A ‘Worthington’ Idea

EMS firm Worthington Assembly last week announced a deal to market its EMS services via CircuitHub.

WAI is a small EMS company located in Western Massachusetts. Like many in the sub-$20 million space, WAI’s owners double as its salesmen, and the firm relies heavily on word of mouth (and engineers changing jobs) for prospecting.

CircuitHub developed a universal parts library and is offering that, along with BoM, bare board and assembly quoting. PCD&F did a piece on the company last year.

Chris Denney, WAI’s CTO (and a sometime CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY columnist) explains the partnership here.

Clearly, more opportunities to order boards from a variety of suppliers via a single website are popping up, with the site typically offering free software in order to gain visitors (FabStream, for example, offers use of a PCB CAD tool capable of up to 12 layer boards, and SnapEDA offers simulation).

I would not anticipate larger EMS firms would go this route. But for smaller ones, whose cost of sales would be proportionally high relative to its income if it employed direct outside sales, using app-based vendors could be a creative and low-cost way to find new customers.