Satellite Set-Top Boxes From Concept to 100K Units Shipped in 118 Days0 pages

CASE STUDY

Satellite Set-Top Boxes
From Concept to 100K Units
Shipped in 118 Days

THE results

The Opportunity

•t Design through Mass t
t Production in 4 Months

A set-top box company for one of the world’s leading satellite content providers
came to Sanmina to design a new satellite set top box and move production from
China to Mexico. The existing products were being made in China and the
company tried to meet local content and cost requirements but was not
successful. They were also experiencing a number of manufacturing and
assembly challenges, including unacceptable defect levels and repair costs.

•t Resolved Local Content t
t Requirements
•t Achieved 35% Total Cost t
t Reduction
•t Substantial Quality
t Improvements
Based on local content
requirements, customer
demand or logistics, there
is an increasing trend
among OEMs to have
products manufactured in
a specific geographic
region. The proximity
between the customer and
an EMS partner also allows
for better collaboration and
efficiency in addressing
design and production
issues.

The OEM asked Sanmina to design a new satellite set top box based on the ST
Micro 5107 to meet a specific price point for the Mexican market. Not only did they
need a new design, the company had a very aggressive delivery time schedule—
four months from design to mass production.

The Solutions
To meet these challenges, Sanmina had to rethink the entire product to meet
cost and schedule demands, coming up with different ideas based on the existing
design:
•t

Plastic Chassis. The existing design of the set top box used a metal
chassis; Sanmina proposed using a plastic chassis, which reduced cost
substantially. Sanmina designed the plastic chassis for low-cost
production in its own plastics production facility.

•t

2-Layer PCB. Many similar products were using 4-6 layer PCBs. Sanmina t
designed, developed and produced the PCBs using just 2-layers, tt
resulting in a significantly lower cost.

•t

24-hour Design Cycle. With design teams all over the world, the Sanmina t
India design team was used to keep the design process going, day and t
night, which helped to meet the aggressive design timeline.

•t

Quick ramp to production. Once the product was designed, prototyped
and tested, Sanmina Guadalajara ramped production within a few weeks t
to meet production volume requirements.

•t

Vertically integrated. Sanmina’s ability to do the entire product design, t
PCB and enclosure development, product introduction and volume ramp t
significantly improved time to market and product cost.