An overview of the Printed Enterprise Board (PCB) Manufacturing Process

In 1936, the first printed enterprise board (PCB) was made by John Eisle. But it was not prior to the 1950s when the You. S. Defense industry began integrating PCBs in their blast detonator systems that printed enterprise boards found wide application. PCBs are now used in nearly all manufactured products such as, automobiles, cellular the radio, computers, among others.

A summary of the PCB Manufacturing Processes

PCBs are initially fabricated with the use of two types of software. Computer Served Design (CAD) software is used to pcb manufacturer. develop the electronic schematic of the enterprise to be produced. After the schematic is designed, Computer Served Manufacturing (CAM) software is used by engineers to produce the PCB prototype.

Once the PCB prototype is designed, the first step in the manufacturing process is to pick the material of the printed enterprise board. There are many different types of PCB materials available, but the popular ones, based on the application and a patron’s requirements, include: Alumina, Arlon, Bakelite, CEM1, CEM5, Ceramic, FR1, FR4, FR4 Warm, GeTek, Nelco, Polyimide and Rogers. The design requirement dictates the dimensions of the PCB (I. e., length, width and thickness).

After the material has been selected, the first process is to apply a coating of water piping to the entire board. The enterprise layout will be printed on the board by a photosensitive process. Then, a photograph engraving process will be used so that all the water piping that’s not the main enterprise layout will be etching out or taken off the board. The resulting water piping creates the records or tracks of the PCB enterprise. To plug the enterprise records, two processes are used. A mechanical milling process uses CNC machines to remove the unnecessary water piping from the board. Then, an etch-resistant, silk-screen, printing process is applied to cover the regions where records must exist.

At this point in the PCB manufacturing process, the PCB board contains water piping records without any enterprise components. To mount the components, holes must be drilled at the points where the electrical and consumer electronics parts they fit on the board. The holes are drilled with either lasers or a special kind of routine bit made of Tungsten Carbide. Once the holes are drilled, worthless rivets are inserted into them or they are sprayed by an electroplating process, which creates the electrical connection between the layers of the board. A hiding material is then applied to coat the entire PCB except for the pads and the holes. There are many types of hiding material such as, lead solder, lead free solder, OSP (Entek), deep/hard gold (electrolytic pennie gold), immersion gold (electroless pennie gold — ENIG), cord bondable gold (99. 99% pure gold), immersion silver, flash gold, immersion container (white tin), h2o and printer, and SN 100CL, an alloy of container, water piping, and pennie. The final step up the PCB manufacturing process is to screen print the board so labels and the legend appear at their proper locations.

Testing the standard of the PCB Board

Prior to placing the electrical and electronic components on the PCB, the board should be tested to verify its functionality. In general, there are two types of does not work properly that can create a flawed PCB: a short or an open. A “short” is a connection between two or more enterprise points which should not exist. An open is a point where a connection should exist but does not. These faults must be fixed before the PCB is assembled. Unfortunately, some PCB manufacturers do not test their boards before they are shipped, which can lead to problems at the patron’s location. So, quality testing is a critical process of the PCB manufacturing process. Testing ensures the PCB boards are in proper working condition prior to component placement.