Why press-fit

The press-fit forms a cold weld — a gas-tight metallic interface with low contact resistance and high reliability — and installs on standard pin-stitch equipment rather than adding a fastening operation to the line.

Qualifying it

DFMEA, minimum achievable PCB-to-heatsink offset, simulated insertion and retention forces, CTE mismatch across temperature, galvanic corrosion at the press-fit and standoff interfaces, and a reliability validation plan. The tolerance work is what decides whether the joint is even physically possible.

What it bought

Measured against the M3×7 screw baseline it replaced, the press-fit approach improved cost, mass, cycle time and PCB real estate at once — which is rare enough to be worth patenting.