What value does the Engineering Review option provide?

Bay Area Circuits offers an Engineering Review service as an option when purchasing through our InstantDFM experience. If you select Engineering Review, our engineering team will review your design for potential manufacturing, reliability, and assembly issues and will notify you in the event of an issue that needs to be resolved. While this should not be confused for a complete design review, selecting this option will help eliminate possible manufacturing issues and ensure that the board you ultimately receive, looks and functions as expected.

Completing an order without selecting the Engineering Review service means you should expect us to follow your data and inputs exactly as specified. This may allow for time-sensitive projects to proceed to manufacturing quickly without risk of a project being put on hold for engineering questions, and will result in a lower PCB cost.

Some specific checks that are included (but not limited to) when we perform an Engineering Review:

	With Engineering Review	Without Engineering Review
Fabrication Drawing	The fabrication drawing is verified in detail, along with any other notes documents, and all discrepancies to the InstantDFM order are questioned directly with the designer.	All discrepancies default to whatever the customer entered on InstantDFM.
Annular Ring and Hole to Copper	BAC will review and edit data to ensure no electrical failures due to annular ring or hole to copper.  When not possible, the customer will be notified and adjustment options will be discussed.	Design will be run as-is and BAC is not responsible for shorts or opens due to annular ring or distance from a hole to copper of another net.
Silkscreen	Verification of silkscreen legibility by BAC.	Silkscreen will be printed as designed, with the exception of clipping off of pads.
Soldermask	Verification of soldermask clearances and dams with adjustment as necessary.	BAC’s standard soldermask clearances will be used (typically 0.002”).  Undersized dams or misregistration may result.
Tolerancing	Nonstandard tolerances will be followed whenever possible.  If not possible, customer will be notified and options will be discussed.	Nonstandard tolerances are considered to be waived and BAC’s standard tolerances will be followed.
Holes on Board Edge (Edge Castellations)	Options for edge castellations will be presented to the customer.	Edge castellations will be built without special processing, which may cause damage to the edge castellations.
Via-in-Pad	If Via Fill is None, then vias in pads will be checked for whether via fill is recommended.	If Via Fill is None, BAC will proceed without via fill in all cases.
BGA Tenting	Tenting will be added to dogbone vias under BGAs if the vias are exposed in the Gerber.	Vias under BGAs will be processed per Gerber.