V9000 PCB Board (left is bottom and right is top)
It isn't the first such project done by Vikay. They have done Motorola StarTac and MicroTac before.
The challenge of this project is we have to go beyond our comfort zone:
1) RF receiver need to be thin by 50% its regular size.
2) The PCB thickness is just 0.9mm, instead of the usual 1.6mm. How to design such that it wouldn't warp during SMT process become a challenge.
3) The PCB is not sitting flat. It is deliberate warp 1mm during assembly due to lack of space.
RF Receiver
Tradition RF Receiver is big and bulky, which is why ancient cordless phones and mobile phones are very large. Foo designed a new and compact RF Receiver that is less than half the high. It is also narrower and shorter by a few mm.
When we send to SISIR (now Spring) for testing, they failed it and recommend a paid solution to us. The solution turn out to be even bigger than those found in the ancient phones. Bumper.
Luckily we also send our RF Receiver to the German Standard for approval, since it is going to market there. We got a go ahead without modification.
PCB design
PCB design doesn't go well either. When I was finishing about 90%, I was told by the Electronic Engineer that the foot print of the capacitor given earlier is the wrong orientation. After some grumbling, I continued my work. I managed to finished and gerber, just before I was told of my grandfather's passing while touring in Penang.
I informed the team that all the files are done and I will be back after the funeral. The scheduled date to send for prototyping is more than a week away. In my absence, the Sales Director want to the result. He is sick of waiting for the computer to render. In 1995, a simple project like V9000 will take 30min to refresh for AutoCAD on a 486 computer. He give the order to send for PCB prototyping. Somehow Foo is unable to find my gerber, so he took my file and convert to gerber himself. By the time I got back, I found that he took the wrong file to gerber. He took the one with the wrong capacitor footprint. This is why you can see a big X on the broad on the right. I immediately send out the correct gerber to another PCB vendor (that's why 2 different color)
The circuit is checked by Electronics Dept and I got the go ahead do a clean-up before release Revision 2 for prototype run.
The Revision A (production) board arrived a few days before I left the company for my study in NTU.
PS All PCB boards in Vikay is manually route by Mechanical Engineers.
Disclaimer - These PCB are not stolen. Prototype boards and damaged module are given to Mechanical Engineer when they left the company because it is hard to convince one to believe Mechanical Engineer can design PCB in the 90's.
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