Valor NPI

DFM optimization in design and manufacturing

At each successive step of the New Product Introduction (NPI) process, the cost of rectifying a product design problem increases tenfold. The Valor NPI platform provides comprehensive DFM analysis that you can apply concurrently with your design flow for maximum advantage, or at entry to manufacturing.

Resolve manufacturability issues early in the process to save time and money

For PCB designers, Valor NPI provides concurrent DFM analysis during the design process, applying upwards of 700 manufacturing rules to your design to ensure minimum revision spins in manufacturing. The DFM analysis flow can be set up to automatically analyse each new version and pinpoint all potential manufacturing problems directly in the CAD system. For manufacturing NPI and process engineers, Valor NPI provides comprehensive analysis of how new products match the fabrication, assembly and test processes, including BOM and AVL analysis, for rapid feedback to the design customer.

Highlights

  • Reduces the number of design revisions required to bring a new design to volume production release
  • Lowers total product cost by enabling automated DFM early in the design and NPI process
  • Improves the reliability of a design by locating manufacturing risks to be managed ahead of the production processes
  • Reduces the amount of time spent on supplier "call-backs" to the designer
  • Works with all major PCB layout and manufacturing tools, supported by Mentor's OpenDoor partnering program

ODB++ Data Exchange Format

  • An intelligent format for the PCB industry, ODB++ provides optimized data exchange between design and manufacture.
  • Format open to all OpenDoor partners and customers who request it.
  • Captures all PCB DFM, fabrication, assembly and test data into a unified data structure that is easily shared across the supply chain.
  • Eliminates time-consuming reverse-engineering; facilitates automated, repeatable engineering processes.
  • Constantly evolving de facto standard that follows the technology requirements of the electronics interconnect industry.
  • Establishes a continuous, traceable engineering process between design, fabrication and assembly.

More about ODB++ data exchange

Design for PCB Manufacturing (DFM) Verification

Valor NPI

Understand the Manufacturing Risk

 Valor NPI shows where low yield or field failures may occur by using color-severity indicators of red, yellow, and green. Valor NPI further categorizes and prioritizes design-change requirements so that you can easily resolve the most critical issues first. The weight assigned to each check is user-definable, enabling you to decide how the results should be prioritized. After all, your technology and suppliers’ processes are probably different than the next company’s.

imageView Larger Detail

The NPI Flow

The NPI business process is distributed between Design, and Fabrication and Assembly operations that may be outsourced. The Fabrication, Assembly and Test process engineering experts feed their rules into the Valor NPI platform for a complete DFM validation flow that delivers DFM optimization design changes directly into the PCB layout system.

imageView Larger Detail

Comprehensive Analysis

Today’s miniaturized, high-layer count designs cannot be reviewed reliably by manual means. Simple DFM tools do not check for all the required manufacturability issues. Mentor Graphics’ Valor NPI software analyzes your PCB design for manufacturability with more than:

  • 275 Fabrication checks
  • 250 Assembly checks
  • 100 Advanced Substrate checks
  • 40 Microvia checks
  • 30 Panel checks

Valor NPI also provides the ability to check your netlist against the design data to ensure there are no fatal errors within this critical step. Valor NPI validates that your BOM matches the design, and that all components in your Approved Vendors List (AVL) are an acceptable physical match using Mentor’s NPI-dedicated Valor Parts Library (VPL).

imageView Larger Detail

A Dedicated Library for Accurate Assembly Analysis

The method and consistency of components as they are represented in the CAD data presents challenges for accurate assembly analysis. Valor NPI offers optional access to the Valor Parts Library (VPL), which contains more than 35 million manufacturing part numbers with accurate 2-½ D “plus” data.

The component bodies are drawn according to the manufacturer’s data sheet, adhering to an ISO-9001 certified process, including the length, width, and height as well as the pin contact areas. This is the best way to assure optimum solder joints in your design, together with guaranteed assembly and rework capability.

imageView Larger Detail

Synchronized with your supply chain

Unless the designer and the manufacturer perform the same analysis, there is no certainty that the PCB design will not have DFM problems. Anything less leaves the risk that you have missed something costly. Valor NPI was developed by the same people who created the DFM verification tools used by more PCB fabricators and contract assembly companies than any other system. Save the time spent wondering if you got it right. Use the same rules, and even the same settings, within Valor NPI across the flow to simulate DFM consistently at all levels in the distributed NPI process.

imageView Larger Detail

Datasheet

Toolbox

Valor NPI Product Support

The Valor NPI support team has joined the award-winning support team at Mentor Graphics.

Blog Posts

vSure, For Sure

John Isaac's Blog

blog post: A few weeks ago we annouced release 9 of the vSure design for manufactuability (DFM) product.  Press Release.    This product came to us via the Valor acquisition and is used in many competitive design…View Blog Post

DFM, starts with Design and ends with Manufacturing

Max Clark’s Blog – DFM begins with Design

blog post: In the world of a PCB designer where component placement, complex fan outs and copper routing is completed at an ever increasing rate, it is easy to forget that effective DFM starts in Design and ends with…View Blog Post