Feature-based design of electronics assemblies

Abstract

Feature-based design is an approach that promises substantial benefits in capturing and transferring a designer's intent to other stages of design and manufacturing, thereby helping to integrate the diverse functions associated with design and manufacturing. While feature-based design has considerable potential, it has been applied almost entirely to mechanical design. Furthermore feature-based design has been implemented in a relatively ad hoc manner and, consequently, much of the work on feature-based design cannot be readily applied to other domains. This paper aims to address some of this deficiency by describing a feature-based design system for electronic manufacture that is based on the firm formalism of a feature algebra and a feature-based design algorithm. An electronics assembly feature taxonomy is developed, together with feature operators and validation scheme. These are used to build a prototype feature-based design system called Feature-Based Design of Electronics Assemblies (FEBEA). The fo...