QUALITY
At Circuits, quality isn’t an afterthought – it’s a mindset that underpins every aspect of our organization, from sales and consulting through PCB manufacturing, fulfillment, Customer Service and day-to-day administration and management.
Some companies call it Quality, we call it Pride.
Our Quality Policy
Our entire organization is dedicated to providing printed circuit boards that ensure customer satisfaction by meeting contract requirements and exceeding customer expectations. All employees are committed to the continuous implementation, review, and improvement of the Quality System effectiveness to reach the established Quality Objectives.
Quality Management System (QMS)
Quality is something we build into our products as a result of our upfront design for manufacturability review, our firm process controls and the strength of our Quality Management System (QMS). We build our flexible circuit boards using IPC-6013 as our default performance specification, and our QMS – which is designed to meet the requirements of MIL-PRF-31032 and ISO9001:2008 – yields a product that can comply with virtually any military or commercial standard at no extra cost to our customers.
Circuits is an ISO9001:2008 registered company. DSCC certification is in process and expected to be completed in 2010.
Procurement, Contract Review
The quality process starts long before PCB manufacturing begins. Every project starts with purchasing raw materials to customer-specific requirements, incoming materials testing, quality and engineering review of contract requirements and thorough Design for Manufacturability (DFM) and Design Rule Check (DRC). We believe that these first steps, though often transparent to the Customer, are not optional but the foundation of a successful PCB manufacturing process.
Process Controls and In-Process Inspections
Predictable, repeatable, high-yield processes are the backbone of the Quality Management System. We take pride in the robustness of our processes and rely on the quality of each PCB manufacturing step to ensure a lean, efficient and cost-effective production cycle. Statistical Process Controls are used throughout the manufacturing of each product we build and they are constantly validated by In-Process Inspection steps, as required by most performance specifications.
Electrical Testing
We employ a highly accurate, high-speed flying probe tester to give our clients the confidence that the integrity of each finished flexible circuit board is verified through continuity as well as isolation tests. Because the flying probe is fixtureless, our customers are not burdened with the cost of expensive test fixtures and can be fully confident that 100% of the flexible PCB has been tested. The 4 high-speed moving probes (2 front, 2 rear) travel in X, Y and Z dimensions to test all critical pad locations. Every flexible PCB is electrically tested prior to quality approval for shipment. Resistance and capacitance testing is available for buried passives. Controlled impedance TDR testing for coupons is also available.
Final Inspection
Final inspection of flexible PCB products ensures compliance with the full range of
customer specifications, including dimensional measurements of all mechanical
features, finished hole sizes and annular ring, verification of through-hole
interconnect integrity and plating thickness via cross section, and review of
surface finishes. A final visual inspection for quality of workmanship is
performed on 100% of our products. At this time, the complete manufacturing
documentation for the flexible circuit board is reviewed and required quality certificates are
issued for the product.