Printed circuit boards (PCB) are indispensable parts of today's electronic equipments.
Due to the customer demands the size of PCBs has been shrinking, while the number
of components to be mounted on these boards is still increasing. Because of highly
competitive environment, it is necessary to deliver products on time and within budget.
In automotive industry these factors are even more in focus so, that reliability and
quality are the most important project objectives. As a result of extremely high volumes
(~1Mio pieces/year) the appropriate choosing of printed board technology can yield
significant savings and profit caused by the cost reduction of PCB. Design engineers
are forced to find an optimal solution at given constraints and within time, which
satisfies all the requirements. These trends make the design and the manufacturing
of PCBs even more complex and difficult. There are many different models to estimate
the project complexity and board density respectively. This article gives firstly
a brief summary on the versatile design objectives and trade-offs. Secondly we investigate
the possibilities creating an effective PCB Design Support System (PCB-DSS). The model
wants to incorporate both PCB metrics, experiences of design engineers in the past
and results of simulations and tests.
