Case studies

Published with the customer's permission, which is why some name a sector rather than a product. Numbers are from the job files.

Packaging plant, Germany

6-layer industrial control board, immersion gold

Layers6
Components480
Lead time11 working days
ServiceUnlock + copy

The problem. The line controller had failed twice in a year and the plant was down to two spare boards. The MCU vendor had closed and no files existed anywhere in the company.

What we did. Firmware read out from a read-protected part, board copied at six layers, prototype built and run on the actual machine before files were released.

Outcome. Spares now produced locally in batches of twenty. Line downtime on the last failure was four hours instead of three weeks.

Diagnostics OEM, United States

Medical instrument main board, obsolete ARM

Layers8
Components610
Lead time14 working days
ServiceReverse engineering

The problem. A service contract required ten more years of spares on an instrument whose main processor went end-of-life. The original design house no longer existed.

What we did. Full schematic recovery with netlist verification, BOM rebuilt with current part numbers and marked alternates for every obsolete line item.

Outcome. Customer redesigned around a processor still in production, using our schematic as the baseline instead of starting from zero.

Telecom equipment, Italy

RF module on ceramic substrate

Layers4
Components95
Lead time9 working days
ServicePCB copy

The problem. Impedance-controlled board with no surviving fabrication data. Two previous suppliers returned it as not copyable.

What we did. Trace geometry measured rather than estimated, stack-up reconstructed, impedance verified on a test coupon before the main build.

Outcome. Copied boards matched the original within measurement tolerance on the customer test bench.

Machine shop, Turkey

CNC drive board, locked 8051

Layers2
Components210
Lead time6 working days
ServiceUnlock + copy

The problem. A twenty-year-old machine, one working drive board, one dead one, and a manufacturer that stopped supporting the model a decade ago.

What we did. Program extracted from the surviving MCU, board copied, five spares assembled and tested against the machine.

Outcome. Machine kept in service. Replacement cost avoided was a multiple of the project cost.

Your board

Most jobs start looking impossible

If two suppliers have already said no, say so in the message. It usually tells us exactly which method to try.