Invited Speaker at APEX 2017 - Managing the Diminishing Supply and Obsolescence of PCBs for Legacy Systems

Managing the Diminishing Supply and Obsolescence of PCBs for Legacy Systems

Speaker:  William (Bill) Loving

Diminishing Material Supply (DMSMS) is defined as the loss or impending loss of manufacturers or suppliers of items or raw materials. Obsolescence refers to a lack of availability due to statutory and process changes, as well as new designs. DMSMS and Obsolescence adversely affect Total Life Cycle Management (TLCM).

As DMSMS and Obsolescence relate to printed circuit boards (PCB), there is an ever increasing need for maintaining spare and replacement boards for legacy systems that are operating well past their intended lifecycle.  This is especially true in the transportation, medical, automotive, aerospace and military industries.   Many times, the original manufacturer is no longer in business or no longer has the fabrication data.  In these cases, there is the urgent need to precisely regenerate this manufacturing data from existing remaining parts, film, paper drawings, etc.  Exact “Form, Fit and Function” is required so newly fabricated PCBs will “handshake” or integrate properly with existing systems and to avoid costly environmental or functional testing.   Replacement parts that are not identical in all ways to the original parts must be treated as a new design, which is a very expensive and time consuming proposition.

This paper provides a basic understanding of the various techniques for PCB Reengineering that are available today in support of addressing DMSMS and Obsolescence as they related to TLCM.