Printed wiring board (PWB) is an older term used for PCBs.  It was exactly what it sounds like, it was a way to print wiring.  This term could still be used for very simple PCBs where the function is more for mechanical wiring than active circuitry.

A look inside a modern cell phone is a PCB that reflects the ‘work of art’ side.  It’s a finely crafted network of wiring and components, flexible and rigid PCBs which all work together perfectly to provide the functionality we’ve come to take for granted in modern technology.

No matter what your needs are, it’s important to realize that all PCBs are a combination of at least 2, if not more engineering disciplines.  Understanding what these disciplines are and how to specify your requirements are important aspects of getting your PCB done right the first time.  The disciplines are:

Electrical engineering – this is the obvious one. The goal is to wire electronic circuits together.  Of course we’ll need some electrical engineering.

Mechanical engineering – while perhaps not so obvious, we live in the physical world. We are wiring in the physical world so there are mechanical requirements to consider.  Some PCBs have very few mechanical requirements like put 4 holes in the corners.  Others move towards the work of art level, but most are in between.

Software engineering – Almost all PCBs these days have some level of software in them. If there is a microcontroller, then there is software.

Thermal engineering – Many times grand assumptions are made about the environment something will operate in. The environment something will operate in can change the design drastically. Specialties – If there are lights, then perhaps there is an optical engineer involved.

Other specialties can be involved just depending on what needs to be done.

Below is a How-to guide to help you communicate details of the PCB to your engineer for design of your circuit board

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High Level Functionality – The first step is to write down what you want it to do.  You can start out with very broad definitions of your inputs and outputs and what it does.  Provide whatever level of detail you can.  Helpful aspects to think about are parameters like: 

Think about these types of questions and have an understanding about how it all goes together. Of course your engineer will be happy to fill in the gaps, but the more effectively you can communicate, the better chance of getting what you want and saving costs due to miscommunication. 

For more details on how to write a specification, please check out this article. 

Mechanical and Thermal Requirements – We know we need to understand the kind of space you want to put your PCB into.  Sometimes it’s as simple as ‘put it in this box’.  However, even that can lead to issues.  What about these questions:

Software Requirements – While many boards have very basic functionality like ‘turn this on when this happens’, other PCBs can have very complicated logic built into them.  In some cases, software can drive 75% of a PCBs design cost, and sometimes more.  Software is a double edge sword in modern day PCB design.  On the one hand, it offers extreme flexibility and capability to create complex functionality and control.  On the downside, all of the flexibility and control can lead to software never being finished.  If there is a new idea to implement, it’s likely you’ll be able to add it in to the software.  This is great if it means you can sell more of your product with a software change.  It’s not so great if changes are made haphazardly because software changes are ‘easy’.  A specification is very important for this phase.  Make sure you can answer these questions:

What does the software have to do in all cases? Not just in the main case, but in everything you want it to do.

Other Specialties – If other specialty engineering disciplines are required, specification and design can get more complicated.  Some companies, like ours, are familiar with LEDs where we can cover most of the requirements for a LED lighting project without an optical engineer.  However, there are other cases where complicated instrumentation may need to be researched or subcontracted for very specific design aspects.  Below are some examples of some non-standard engineering requirements.

In many of these cases, modules have been developed by 3rd parties that can help reduce the engineering requirements of the specialty work to the level of skilled engineer.  In some cases, it is the scientist who needs the PCB built and they can provide the first-hand expertise on how the other engineers need to interface to their specialty systems.

One more very important engineer that was not mentioned is the manufacturing engineer.  This isn’t necessarily a specific engineering discipline, but to consider how your PCB assembly will be produced.  Placing a surface mount component is cheaper than placing a through hole component.  (Machines do the surface mount work.)  There are scores of items to review to ensure high yield PCB development.  Many are standard practices, but the skill lies in the hands of the engineers building the board.
Printed circuit board development is a complex and highly skilled craft.  With all of the various skills involved, it is best completed by a team of engineers.  Sure, there are many design challenges that are small enough to be completed effectively by a single engineer in a reasonable amount of time.  However, as the saying goes, two heads are better than one.  Having an engineering team develop your PCB where there are design processes and reviews in place help ensure a high quality design for your product.

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The costs of creating something. Engineers are generally the ones responsible for creating a product. Depending on what the product is, you could have industrial designers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and software engineers. There are other specialties as well, but most products require these as the core.

Engineers are generally well educated and skilled individuals. People with this kind of expertise usually earn an excellent income. So there is a large human cost to product development. And it takes a lot of time, especially if you want it done right.

The costs of making it. Now that the design engineers have created and developed the product, it needs to be made, and you want it made in mass. While the engineers above could certainly make your product, it would not be cost effective.  Therefore, we need more engineers and resources to reduce the product cost by engineering the complexity out of the manufacturing process.  Only then can lesser skilled labor and machines manufacture your product and reduce overall costs. This can range from robot automation, to creating tools to stamp steel or injection molding plastic, to documentation for an assembly work station. This is all before you actually make the first production part. This is one of the single most misunderstood costs in product development. Then you have to actually produce it, which then requires additional raw materials (read costs) for your tools and your assemblers to actually produce the parts and products you need.

The cost of selling it. You’ve invested money into the engineering and the production. Now I am sure you did not want to fill your garage with copies of your product. You want to sell it. While there are many ways to sell your product, almost none are free. Whether it is traditional advertising, a pay per click campaign, or a crowdfunding platform, they all cost money. It will also take a lot of your time, or at least a lot of someone’s time. Factor that in.

The hidden costs. Ah, the unknown unknowns. This is why you go to experts. If you are starting a company, you may have regulations that you need to adhere to. For any electrical product you develop, you need to consider the FCC regulations. If you plan to sell into a big box store, you may need to adhere to a UL specification. Do you want to sell into Europe? You need CE specification. Does your product have Bluetooth? You’ll need to join their consortium. There are all sorts of hidden costs you may need to consider when selling and marketing your product. Some are governmentally mandated; some are industry specific. Research your industry and consult with experts to learn what these hidden costs are so you can plan for them.

The single biggest problem startups and inventors have is not understanding these costs. It is very common to look at a product on the market that costs $10 and expect that it can be designed and made for $1000. A single, simple plastic part can have a tooling cost of $5000 or more, and that is before the engineering or selling part. A good example is a home coffee maker you can buy for $100 (a nice one). It may have cost the company upwards of $500,000 to get the first one to the store shelves. They only make their money back because they are going sell 100,000 of them. You can see quickly here how volume plays a major role in what a product costs. Investigate and understand the costs of product development, then proceed accordingly.

Please check out my other blog posts Engineering Design Based on Volume and The Missing Link Between Prototype and Production for more information.

As I dug in to my memory bank, I remembered he was also an engineer and my brother-in-law was always bragging about how smart he was.  This should be relatable!  I gave it a shot and I downloaded what was for me my very first podcast.  I gave it a listen, and I was hooked. 

Peter Awad (short a, short i sound) hosts the “Slow Hustle” and chronicles the ups and downs of entrepreneurial life.  As he says, “Sometimes you are crushing it and sometimes it is crushing you.”  I’m not the type of guy to ever use the term ‘crushing’, but now I have become more familiar with this expression.  This is a sentiment I can relate to in my personal life and business.  I could certainly connect with the content here. 

Almost every episode is inspired and well produced.  Some of my favorites are:

SH005 with Arel Moodie talking about the Art of Likability. Arel goes into just some of the basics of being a good person and interacting with everyday people on a more personal level.

SH021 with Amy Morin talking about being mentally strong.  Amy talks about personal struggles in her life which for she creates a list of what she cannot do if she wants to remain mentally strong.

SH052 with Hal Elrod talks about how to wake up like it is Christmas morning.  His concept for the ‘Miracle Morning’ is something that I’ve embraced, executed, and recommended to others.

Corey Blake talk about vulnerability is sexy.  I’m fascinated with the idea and I’ve been working on implementing this in my life and work.

Jason Zook explains the Career Dungeon.  Jason is an all-around great and creative guy.  Fun to listen to.

Jeff Hyman is the Startup Therapist. He talks about ‘Ugly Babies’.  Yes, you may have a bad idea.

Each podcast generally starts out with the back story on the guest.  I think this is the most fascinating part of the podcast.  Then they go into some of the struggles they have had, and how they have relaxed and recalibrated their lives.  That is the “slowness part of the podcast”.

So much of entrepreneurship is a mental game with yourself.  We thrive off mantras like “you only fail when you give up” or “10 years of trying will make you look like an overnight success”.  It is C-R-A-Z-Y.  Obviously we do not live in reality, if we did, we would go get jobs! 

If you have any desire to start your own entrepreneurial venture, or are knee deep in one, I highly recommend you take a listen.  It’s like AA for entrepreneurs.  “Hi, my name is Gabriel, and I’m an entrepreneur.”  And much like alcoholism, I fully believe there is a genetic predisposition to entrepreneurism that you will have to learn to fight or embrace.

So just as the name states, the goal here is to prove the concept of the product you want to ultimately produce.  The goal is fairly clear, however, the way you define that goal gets a bit trickier.  The three things you want to accomplish at this stage are:

1. Lean startup mentality – fail fast, fail cheap.  You have the idea, now does anyone want it?  Having a POC that is cost effective to create is important here.  Assessing validation of the idea and product at every stage of prototyping is paramount.  You must avoid phrases like, “I just know this will be big.” 
2. Determine your next incremental step.  If you have X resources, what do you expect to accomplish after expending X resources?  For instance, if you are willing to put in 100 hours of time and $200, there should be a goal at the end of that stage.  It can be as simple as answering the question, does anyone like my product to determine if it is worth investing more time.  It could be more complex such as, I need to be able to raise $20,000 for my next step of development with this POC. 
3. Does it work?  This may seem obvious, and so many times ideas seem so clear in your head, but once you start working on it, you find details that just do not pan out. 

Building hardware isn’t cheap, but it is getting better all the time.  Here is where places like Spark Fun and products like the Raspberry Pi and Arduino come in.  You can mock up some hardware, display, some buttons, and show how your product can work.  Of course this is great if you are technical, but if you are not, then you have a few more challenges ahead of you, but you can still validate.  Perhaps you can make up some renderings and tell the story of your product visually.  Or, you can partner with someone technical.  In either case, technical or not, you should always build a team.  Techs need non-techs and vice versa, but this is another blog. 

Your POC needs to tell the story, show the story, and validate the product.  The definition of a POC is the goal.  It is defined by the early stages of accomplishing these goals.  Keep in mind that a POC is also typically limited in looks and function.  It is not a minimal viable product (MVP).  It’s just the first stages on your way to a functional prototype, and pilot run, and MVP.

Unless you have all of the resources you need to create and develop your product, you are more than likely interfacing with a technical consultant or engineering company.  The more effectively you can communicate with the technical team, the better your chances of getting what you want. 

Writing it down and describing all of your ideas and how they will work together will be a very effective task for moving your idea forward with your technical team.  You will begin to see holes in the logic, stumble upon new ideas, and begin to document what is in your head.  Writing it down will also alleviate the constant ruminating of an idea in your head.

But you say, “I’m not an engineer!  I don’t know how to write a specification!”.  Well, both statements may be true, but if you want to pave the way to a successful product development venture, you’ll need to learn to communicate your ideas effectively to the engineers who can write a specification.  And with a few helpful tips, you too can write a basic specification.

An item of note, this list is for a somewhat validated idea.  This list assumes you’ve already performed the basics like validated a market, created a tentative business model, and you have performed some level of prototyping.

1. Brainstorm.  Your first step is to just get all of your ideas down on paper.  White boards, drawings, and short lists are a good place to start.  You want to focus enough on this so it is all out of your head and on paper.  You can move things around later, but now you have your concept documented and you can begin to refine it.
2. Strong and weak words.  Inventors tend to get very tied to their ideas.  Try to break away from that and begin to describe what you need done using some special words.  If you use a phrase like, “The device shall be made from titanium,” then the reader will expect that you are the expert in this material and there is no room for variance.  Other strong phrases are: must have, required to, and will.  Does it need to be made from titanium or is it that weight to be minimized?  There are weak words to use like may or should or can.  Think about what is absolutely required and what would be nice, and the real goal you are hoping to achieve.  Then write that down.  Keep in mind that opposites can also be valuable in your writing.  Phrases like cannot, shall not, and should not are equally useful.
3. Sketch.  As you have heard, a picture is worth a thousand words.  You may be amazed at how effective a simple block diagram in Power Point can be.  Show how things are connected.  Show the logical flow of operation.  There are great mock-up tools for software/apps these days you can also use.  The more you think and articulate your idea, the more effective it will be conveyed and possibly become a better product.
4. Write what you know.  You are probably not an engineer if you are reading this, so don’t try to be.  Yes, you should educate yourself in the technical field of your idea.  You should not spend your days looking over websites for microcontrollers and then specify the use of one in your project.  Describe the features and functionality you require, don’t try to engineer the product unless you have that skillset (before you had this idea).  An experienced engineer will have just that, a lot more experience.  Take advantage of that and let them do what they are good at.
5. Iterate.  A specification is a living document.  It can change as the market and business input is uncovered.  As you learn more about your idea, do more research, and develop your product and business, it will constantly evolve.  Now with that being said, once you engage a technical team, there can be costs associated with change.  You will want to get close enough to start engaging your technical team, but once you hand it over to them you should have a good assurance it’s right, and only make changes that absolutely have to be done.  Inventors tend to like to ‘tinker’ with their ideas which can keep products from ever reaching the market, so iterate until you have something to sell, then stop.  Let the market drive your iterations.  This is a subject for another posting.

What I’ve described above is generally referred to as Functional Requirements Specification or a FRS.  The engineering team will then likely create several documents from this which could be a Design or Product Specification, Test and Validation Plans, etc.  Those are beyond the scope here. 

Don’t worry about making it perfect.  From a non-technical perspective, you should put down the things that you care about.  However technical and non-technical that is.  If you care about the color, put that down.  If you care about costs, put that down.  If you don’t care what material is used, let the engineer figure that out.  In any case, your technical team will start to ask you a lot of questions to help flesh out your specification.  After the ground work is laid, then everyone can be on the same page for what needs to be done.

Here are some Do’s:

1. Do get yourself a clicker and use the space (Time allocated).  Engage with your audience through motion, eye contact and body language. The best presentations are conducted by passionate, animated entrepreneurs who do not hide behind the podium. While presenting don’t forget to target your key audience. These are the people who likely have investment funds.
2. Do provide factual and validated information.  If you are ever caught lying, or perceived as deceitful, you’re dead.  Period.
3. Do rehearse.  Practice your pitch, and get the timing down.  Every group will have a different format.  Sometimes you’ll have 15 minutes to pitch and sometimes you’ll have less.  Sometimes there will be lots of questions with little time to respond.  Other times there will be few questions and dead air.  Tailor your pitch to each time frame and practice.  If you are new, put the important stuff up front.  If you are a pro, you will have your pitch timing down and you won’t run out of time in any situation.  Be a pro.
4. Do tell us ‘Why You’?  Ideas are cheap, execution is everything.  Why are you going to be successful with this idea?  Is your team awesome?  Say so. 

Here are some Don’ts:

1. Don’t throw out large numbers.  Don’t use the size of the market to try to reflect the size of what you think your business will be.  Any major market is in the billions and trying to relate your company revenue to that is just ridiculous at this point when you barely have a validated product.  Don’t suggest that you can even capture 1% of it, that is an unsubstantiated number (since unvalidated isn’t a proper word).
2. Don’t use baseless information.  This is tough, but try to validate information in any way possible.  What have other companies done in the past?  How long did it take them to break into the market?  What market share does the leader have? Have you ever spoken with a customer to see what they think?
3. Don’t create crazy projections.  Be realistic. If you think you can turn your startup into a $100M venture in a niche industry in 5 years, you clearly don’t have any idea what you are talking about.  Refer to number #2.  What have others done?
4. Don’t be sloppy.  Nothing makes you look worse than showing up in jeans and a t-shirt (be appropriate for the venue) or have a PowerPoint deck with bad graphics, and a poor layout.  Do your research and make sure you put your best foot forward.

Most of all though, have fun.  When you get to the point where this starts to get serious and you are raising money, you may give this pitch 1000 times (a number thrown out recently by a very successful entrepreneur) to get what you ultimately want.  You are going to get tired, but you need to keep it real, energetic, and have fun with it.  Good luck out there! 

First Sell 1

Many entrepreneurs and startups are so focused on the big picture.  It’s great to have vision, but can you sell 1?  Go out and try to sell 1.  You’ll learn a lot.  In short this is called validation.  Once you’ve sold 1, sell 10.  See how that goes.  Lose money on them if you must, but sell something.  It’s important at some stage you get money to change hands.  Many ‘customers’ will be happy to use your product for free.  If your product is providing a value to your customer, they should be willing to pay for it.  Paying customers are more likely to tell you the truth about your product.

Now you have the problem that you need something tangible to sell them.  If you are going to sell 1, you now need to make 1, and keep in mind that this order isn’t necessarily important. 

Go out and try to sell 1.

Design for 1

Many would just consider this a prototype, but it should be a little more than this.  It doesn’t need to be at the level of a MVP, but it should be close. 

For electronics you are buying mostly off the shelf products, assembling, and making it work.  Program it up, add your special sauce and go. 

Mechanically, you’ll be looking at 3D prints and traditional machining for plastic and metal components.  It doesn’t matter what this version costs to make, the point is that you made it, and you can sell it.

This version is usually built by the engineer who designed it.

Design for 100

Now that you’ve sold a few and have received invaluable feedback from your early customers, iterate.  Design at this level will likely involve a combination of custom and off the shelf components.  There may be some design compromises, but it’s starting to get to where it should be.  It’s still not perfect, but you should be able to start to produce your product and sell it with a little margin.

Electronics are usually a combination of modules and custom circuits.  Assembly is still cumbersome and only partially automated.  Engineers or skilled techs are still intimately involved at this stage.

Mechanics have not changed much from the first stage.  However for plastics and some metals, casting becomes viable.  This process can start from a 3D print and it is used to create mold, which then liquid plastics or metals can be poured into the mold to create your parts.

Overall assembly can start to be handled by technicians, but the engineer will still be close by.

Design for 1000 to 100,000

Now we are cooking.  You have feedback from your customers, you’ve tweaked and refined the design, you know what is going to sell, and now you want to make a lot of them.

Electronics are full custom to the chip level, no more modules.  There may be some custom components used like ASICs or LCDs, but still electronics are mostly off the shelf or commodity.

Mechanical aspects have moved into high volume production.  Usually plastics are injection molded at this point, metal designs are casted (investment or die-cast), optimized for machining, or possibly re-engineered to plastic to take advantage of injection molding.

The assembly line utilizes a lot of automation and as much unskilled labor as possible.  The process is very important as well as quality control.  A fall out of 5% may be acceptable at low volume, but at higher volumes, you’ll be spending a lot of money manufacturing trash.

Design for 100,000 and Beyond

When your design is manufactured in this volume, you have reached a HNL (whole ‘nother level).  Think of Apple.  They don’t spend much time looking around at what they buy to integrate into their devices, they just design, build and manufacture whatever they need.  If they want a button, they make it.  Custom silicon or screens, they specify it and work with vendors to get it made.  There are still commodity electronics components used, but only when they are a perfect fit for what they need.

The Math

How you design a product is directly related to the quantity the product is manufactured.

Here is the key, the setup and customization charges amortize out across the production run.  We call this NRE, non-recurring engineering (more below).  In every level of design and manufacturing, there is NRE, this leads to the mentality of the more you make, the less it will cost, down to a minimal level.  Here is how the math works.

NRE + cost per unit * volume = total expense / volume

or

(NRE + (cost per unit * volume)) / volume = actual cost per unit

As volume increases, the NRE term becomes insignificant.  Don’t believe me yet?  Here is an example.

A client has spent $100,000 on engineering (NRE) and wishes to produce 2000 units.  The units cost $100 each at that volume.  Plugging in the numbers, the total expense is $200,000.  Dividing by the volume, the real cost per unit is $100.  They all sell and the product is a success and the client determines they should build 100,000 units next time.  Without more NRE, and assuming a 20% reduction in cost due to volume, the total expense is $4M or $40 each (remember we don’t need to amortize the NRE again).  That sounds great!  Look how the cost dropped.  However if you spend another $100,000 in NRE and the cost per unit drops to $25, the total expense is $2.6M and the cost per unit is $26.  Now that is savings.  Spending money to save money.

Spend money to save money.

NRE

NRE can take many forms.  It may be a simple design change from a module to a discrete solution.  Modules cost more because they have added value and the hard work has been done.  If you put in the hard work (NRE), you can reduce your BOM cost by purchasing the less expensive discrete components rather than a module.  Another example on the mechanical side is when moving from 3D printing or castings to injection molding.  ‘Tooling’ is the general term for creating a tool to make a part. Injection mold tools can run from $2000 to over $100,000.  The parts they product may only cost pennies to a few dollars. You are basically paying for the raw material of the plastic and the time, which is much less than the labor and time intensive other methods.

A big place where NRE can pay off big is with DFM, or design for manufacturing.  Making strategic design changes to reduce assembly time and to introduce automation whether with software or machines, can reduce your manufacturing costs, especially with labor intensive product.

A note on volumes

Every product is different.  We’ve had clients where 100 units a year was a massive business and others that weren’t really doing until they hit 10,000.  The numbers here are relative.  The important thing here is to validate and change your design as your volumes increase.  In some cases you may have more custom design at low volumes or source items off the shelf at high volumes. 

The takeaway here is that it takes money to save money.  Figure out where you are in this process and design and manufacture accordingly.