Siemens is collaborating with NVIDIA to increase engineering productivity, notably by boosting manufacturing yields of printed circuit boards (PCBs). Siemens’ Teamcenter software for product lifecycle management (PLM) and Process Preparation X and Siemens’ digital twin technology are being used with NVIDIA Cosmos to accelerate production planning.

Shorter manufacturing cycles are being achieved with the aid of automated optical inspection (AOI) powered by artificial intelligence (AI). By digital signal processing and analysis in the digital realm, electronic manufacturers can optimize product designs before starting a physical production process (see image above). 

Quality control of manufactured electronic products is typically achieved with the help of optical inspection processes. Such processes are typically created by building and working with a physical product prototype. But by moving essential parts of the process, such as PCB design and formation of a bill of materials (BOM) for the PCB to a virtual world in the digital realm, a digital twin of the product prototype (rather than a physical board) can be created to provide insights into the types of preparation required for manufacturing that product. 

A digital twin of an electronic product to be manufactured can be used with NVIDIA Cosmos to create an ideal prototype PCB layout. Images of PCB defects can also be created, by means of NVIDIA Cosmos Data Factory, to be used as warning signs to calibrate optical inspection systems.

This collaboration of digital tools for the sake of speeding electronic manufacturing processes is being demonstrated at the Siemens Electronics Factory in Erlangen, Germany. The location serves as a training ground and a starting point for customer education on advanced automated manufacturing processes powered by AI technology.

The factory provides a full-scale production environment and can be adapted to many scales and use cases to improve the manufacturing quality for a product of interest.