JLCPCB helps avoid global semiconductor shortages and creates profitable projects

The production of electronic solutions is at risk. The global shortage of electronic components will affect different sectors of the market: on product prices and on the ability to meet market demands.

Many solutions and devices are developed and composed by printed circuit boards. To meet market demands with greater quality and agility, they are manufactured using the surface mount process, which is known as Surface Mount Technology (SMT).

This mounting technology uses electronic devices known as SMDs (Surface Mount Devices). It provides the development of more complex projects, electrical noise reduction, greater circuit density and cost reduction, as there is no drilling step on the electronic board.

In addition, it is possible to develop electronic boards that are:

  1. Lighter,
  2. produced on a large scale by automatic assembly process,
  3. high manufacturing speed, and
  4. lower financial cost.

This has a big impact on reducing the weight, size of electronic products and profit margin on sales to consumers.

These results were obtained thanks to the advancement of surface mount technology with SMD components.

The JLCPCB SMT assembly and welding service is performed automatically and quickly. This allows the user to save money and time on labor. In addition, it avoids human error in the process of assembling electronic boards on a large scale, compared to Pin Through Hole (PTH) components.

Nowadays this technology is commonly used and is present in all areas of the industrial sector. However, in recent years, the semiconductor crisis in the market has affected several sectors, making it impossible to produce numerous electronic solutions and increasing the sale price to the final consumer.

The shortage of electronic components in the market is a reality for large and small companies. The execution of new projects and the revenue of many companies are at risk and can bring great problems for manufacturers of technological solutions in the world.

In recent months, several companies have had difficulty finding semiconductors for the development of their products. This generated disorganization in the production processes, manufacturing downtime and increased costs of selling their products to the consumer.

In Brazil, for example, the manufacturer Mercedes-Benz will stop manufacturing buses, chassis and other products in 2 factories and will offer collective vacations to 5600 employees. The manufacturer informs that this is due to the global semiconductor crisis in the world.

Renault and Scania, major manufacturers in the automobile sector, also offered time off to 4500 and 3800 employees during the month of April 2022.

The Jeep manufacturer in Brazil operates only 6 days a week in three shifts. But it has long queues for its products due to the insufficient quantity of electronic items to meet the needs of the market.

The Arduino company in Italy has seen a huge increase in the prices of electronic boards and other educational products.

This large variation in the factory operating system and high product prices is due to the lack of electronic components in the world.

After all, the market works by the law of supply and demand. The low availability of electronic components prevents the commercialization and production of new products. Consequently, there is an increase in services and price of the final product.

However, it is possible to prevent and reduce the impacts of the crisis of lack of electronic components in the market, where most of the components requested are SMDs for surface welding technology.

A few years ago, JLCPCCB launched a system capable of minimizing the effects of the global semiconductor crisis for small consumers and large electronics manufacturers in the market. The company created the JLCPCB SMT Parts Library.

 

JLCPCB SMT Parts Library System

The JLCPCB SMT Parts library is a system that was created with the aim of providing a wide range of electronic components to the market. This system was created to:

  • Reduce the effects of the semiconductor crisis on the market,
  • Offer low-cost semiconductors to small consumers and large manufacturers,
  • Enable the construction of cost-effective electronic solutions,
  • Create large-scale electronic products and solutions,
  • Facilitate the purchase of electronic components in one place,
  • Time reduction with budget searches, and
  • It allows the construction of a virtual stock of semiconductors.

These are important points that are responsible for making this system efficient and robust. JLCPCB has a team that constantly assesses the demands of its consumers based on their purchasing behavior.

From this, the company knows the main electronic components requested and seeks to buy them in large quantities to:

  • provide them with low cost, and
  • keep them in stock for long periods to avoid the problem of shortage of semiconductors in the market.

This allows small and large consumers to build their own electronic components inventory online, low acquisition cost and a high profit margin on their electronic products produced with JLCPCB's assembly technology service.

The electronic components library is divided into two parts: the basic components and the extended components. In total, there are 698 types of basic components, which are the most frequently used, such as resistors, capacitors, etc. They have already been loaded on P&P machines and occupy the same feeder, so the operator don't need to keep swapping them in and out, thus there's no labor cost.

And the extended components, which are over 300,000 electronic components available. When a part from the Extended Components Library is used, the operator needs to mount the feeders manually, which increases the labor cost. Is charged $3 per extended component.

These components can be purchased and used in JLCPCB's automatic electronic board assembly process. Currently, any project can be assembled in up to 24 hours and with a low manufacturing cost ($8).

The company's objective is:

  • provide agility,
  • quality in the manufacturing process, and
  • better profit margins on the customers' final product.

To meet this, the company has a team and technological solutions that carry out a prior analysis of each client's project, to provide safety, low rates of manufacturing failures and savings in manufacturing time and money for its customers.

This is possible thanks to the JLCPCB Free Design For Manufacturing (DFM) File Check Service.

 

What is JLCPCB Free DFM File Check?

The DFM File Check Service is a service that offers safety, quality and cost reduction in the manufacturing process of printed circuit boards with SMT technology.

JLCPCB's DFM service performs different analyzes on the design file of an electronic board.

The system can evaluate:

  1. Organization of first pin reference orientation of ICs and other devices,
  2. Polarity of electronic components,
  3. Orientation of cathode and anode pins for diodes,
  4. Correction of positioning and orientation of electronic elements,
  5. Organization of the spacing between the electronic components of the project, and
  6. A lot more.

Below we have an example of the DFM service applied in two electronic board projects.

In Figures 1a and 1b we have the analysis of the input file and the correction performed by the JLCPCB application engineers team.

 

 

 

The 2 boards presented above were designed and assembled with the JLCPCB with its surface mount technology. The DFM service was applied to the two electronic boards.

As can be seen, the customer did not have the care and attention to generate the correct positioning and orientation of the electronic components, polarities, and positioning of the first pin of the ICs.

This generates assembly errors during the process of positioning the electronic elements performed by the machines, production failures, and increases the execution time and corrections in your project.

In this way, the free DFM service aims to maximize the efficiency of your projects, ensure safety, and reduce costs.

JLCPCB is committed, year after year, to invest in technology and teams of collaborators to meet market demands, reduce manufacturing costs and offer better prices so that its customers.

In this way they will be able to obtain projects with better quality and great profit margins in the sales of their solutions.