As a result of strong R&D partnerships with leading PCB design companies and board makers, Zuken was able to work closely to understand the requirements of flexible board makers and address these with specialized functionality.  DFM Center has already received a very positive welcome from flexible board manufacturing design professionals in Japan.

The advanced functionality and performance of DFM Center means that it can address any board fabrication requirement, including flexible, rigid and package board production.  It provides effective functionality for CAD data import, acceptance checking, data cleanup, panelization and documentation.  DFM Center also supports various manufacturing data designs, provides CAM data output and includes both full CAD and CAM editing functions that can follow automatically.

Compatible with Zuken’s CR-5000 PCB design suite data format, DFM Center enables direct data transfer from design to manufacturing, facilitating manufacturing design based on CAD attributes.  This improves the efficiency of manufacturability analysis, particularly when accepting PCB design or manufacturing data from overseas, which would otherwise require many man-hours for data cleanup.  Subtle modifications in design or manufacturing data can also be detected quickly and smoothly.  Furthermore, DFM Center makes available the only viable approach for accepting CAM data in Gerber formats, by providing specialized check functionality, combined with automatically proceeding conversion capabilities.

DFM Center for the first time introduces functionality for all flex board back-end processing, in addition to rigid and package board manufacturing process.  It automatically generates data like punching, blanking, or stiffener tacking.

“With DFM Center, Zuken provides the solution for efficient PCB manufacturing design, with complete functionality for any type of flexible, rigid and package board fabrication.  By facilitating interaction from the start with PCB design suites and support of manufacturing tools, we are able to help companies be more competitive.  Zuken shall keep its promise to continuously develop solutions that push the boundaries of PCB design and fabrication,” says Gerhard Lipski Director of Western Market Sales.

DFM Center has already been adopted by leading board makers in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan; including close to 90% of flexible board makers in Japan.  "We successfully introduced DFM Center for the design for manufacturing of complex multi-layer flexible boards.  Foremost, the checking and editing functionality of DFM Center helped us improve product quality.  We also plan applying DFM Center for increasing manufacturing design efficiency."  Says leading flexible board maker SUMITOMO BAKELITE Co.  Ltd.  DFM Center is also increasingly adopted by package board and rigid board makers, including the leading package board maker NGK SPARK PLUG Co.  Ltd.