PCB design is rarely & simple or easy task. The most innovative ideas & robust designs can all suffer at the hands of a poorly thought out schematic or PCB layout.

ANDs electronic design services not only utilise the most up-to-date CAD software, but harness the extensive in-house PCB design knowledge & experience the company has built up - ensuring one of the most critical parts of your electronic product design, the PCB, delivers the results you expect from your product.

The starting point for most electronic designs; from here AND can take onboard an existing paper schematic supplied by the client, or in the majority of cases, commence developing a new electronic design from the work carried out in prior specification, analysis & initial design project phases.

Electronic design engineers enter the schematic into CAD software systems to produce not only an initial schematic design for the product, but also the Bill of Materials (BoM) which accompanies each design.

Right from this early stage in the design carefully consideration is taken with regard to component selection to ensure not only is the most appropriate technology utilised, but that important factors to the client such as cost, safety, energy usage, etc., are addressed.

Board (PCB) layout

Prior to diving head-first into placing out components on the board & routing track signals it is imperative to allocate sufficient time & design consideration to some of the immediately less obvious, but equally crucial factors of the board design.

Mechanical (board outline, mounting holes, connector slots, ventilation holes, mechanical constraints, etc.), Board make-up (number of layers, etc.), Testing (functional &/or in-circuit ), & Power (voltage planes, ground planes, etc.) are just some of the aspects from ANDs 10-point 'Pre-layout plan' that each PCB design goes through before a single resistor or track is laid out. ANDs expertise not only runs to designing PCBs for optimal EMI performance, high-speed signal processing &/or low-cost design, but in providing innovative solutions to design challenges by utilising the best materials, technology & expertise available without sacrificing the budget for the project.

Prototyping & manufacture

Detail design & computer simulations are great, but at some point theory needs to be put into practise. AND offer a range of physical rapid prototyping services to help assist you with the development of your ideas - from early technology demonstrators to allow testing of concepts, through to pre-production prototypes, that look, feel & operate like the final product, but without the associated cost, ideal for trials or market testing. While AND has traditionally taken a project requirement from a client & worked with it through to delivering pre-production prototypes of the product back to the customer, through ANDs approved partner program, full manufacturing services can know be offered, providing a full turn-key approach to product design & development, whilist maintaining the high quality & standards customers have come to expect from ANDs work.

Reverse engineering/design update

As engineers move on & R&D departments scale down increasingly companies can find themselves in the position of wanting to add new features to a current product that's been selling for years, stopped in their tracks by the fact that a design file cannot be opened in current CAD systems or simply no documentations exists for the current design.

Over the years AND has helped a number of companies in this situation through its reverse engineering & design update services. Existing design documentation/files can be updated or re-entered in to compatible CAD system software to produce new design files & manufacturing data. In extreme cases, where little or no documentation exists AND have the experience necessary to completely reverse engineer the design from the end-product back to the drawing board - producing CAD PCB files, BoMs, Gerber files, etc., allowing manufacturing to resume or design update/overhauls to begin.

Where component obsolescence is an issue, AND can assist by designing in suitable alternatives to solve component shortage or end of the line situations.

Enclosures & housings

Whether it is a unit to be house in a 19" rack bay or tomorrow's latest mobile phone, AND view the product casing as an integral part of the PCB design process. Mounting, thermal dynamics, mechanical constraints, usage, safety etc., are all important factors that are taken into account during the PCB design process, to ensure that electronic board works in harmony with the enclosure..

For basic & industrial enclosures AND carry out the majority of the mechanical design in-house. However, where more technical or ergonomic pressures influence the design, say in consumer products, AND have extensive experience of working closely with customer appointed industrial design consultancies to achieve the design. AND can now also offer professional mechanical design services & facilities through its approved partner programme, meaning that in addition to carrying out the design & development of the concept technology, AND can also manage & provide enclosure design & manufacture - a true one-stop-shop design facility reducing project development time, money & complexity.