PCB Power USA

[pcb-power-usa]

How is a PCB Assembled?

Projected to touch a figure of $80 billion by 2026, the global PCB industry is still a segment of the larger electronics ecosystem. That said, understanding the underpinnings of this industry can provide actionable insights into how electronics products must be designed, engineered, and even manufactured.

While most professionals have a considerable understanding of the PCB manufacturing process, the assembly process is often ignored. How a PCB is put together can significantly impact the further quality control process, functionalities of the product, and even the entire project's budget. Thus, it is critical for everyone in the PCB ecosystem – project owners, engineers, designers, and even students to understand the PCB assembly process.

What is PCB Assembly, and How is It Different from PCB Manufacturing?

Several industry incumbents confuse PCB assembly with the PCB fabrication process. The latter deals with the manufacturing of the printed circuit board without any components on it. The former, PCB assembly, is a more intricate process where the board is populated with components that have to be carefully soldered onto the board. This difference highlights why PCB assembly can be a complex process.

Unlike the prototyping phase, the PCB assembly phase is generally a step towards producing your printed circuit board on a large scale. Hence, despite successful prototyping, you must optimize your PCB design for manufacturability. The PCB assembly process can include technical engineers' fees to hand-assemble the components or fees for the automated assembly line. Both the methods can turn expensive and result in massive reruns if the PCB is not ready for manufacturability.

Understanding the PCB assembly process in detail can help you gain an informed perspective into how your design must be prepared for the assembly process to avoid reruns and cost overruns.

The PCB Assembly Process

Depending on the PCB assembly partner you have and the automated or hand-assembled process you are going for, the sequence or the number of touchpoints in the process may change. However, the following sequence is a reliable structure of the PCB assembly process that gives you insights into how you can expect the entire process to unfold:

1. Stencilling the Solder Paste for Accuracy

A solder paste is prepared using tin, silver, and copper. It is mixed with a chemical named 'flux' that ensures the paste will melt and get linked with the board. By the end of this process, the solder paste is ready as a grey-coloured substance prepared to be applied.

An automated assembly process will have a holder that keeps the printed circuit board in one place and another component that uniformly applies the solder paste over it. It is critical to apply the solder paste in the same spaces, or the PCB's performance will become unpredictable. Stencils mitigate this risk to a large extent.

Once you remove the stencil, only the solder paste rests in the places where it is required.

2. Pick and Place

As the name dictates, the process involves picking a printed circuit board and placing the SMD components on it. SMDs form most of the non-connecting components on the printed circuit board, and it is essential to accurately place them in their designated spots.

In an automated PCB assembly process, the printed circuit board with the solder paste applied is picked up from the earlier-mentioned process and then brought to the pick & place step. SMDs are used at the programmed spots, and the process is over within minutes. This process' culmination is a significant step forward from the manual installation of SMDs, which was done for higher accuracy. However, it also resulted in sub-standard results. With programmed devices, it can become easier to deploy the SMDs with the same accuracy but for a larger PCB batch with greater consistency.

3. Solidifying the Solder Paste

If you remember the initial step, you would be able to recall the fact that the soldering paste gets heated and can be cooled to create solder joints. This property is exploited in this very step.

The printed circuit board with all the SMDs and the soldering paste is shifted to a conveyor belt which takes it to a reflow oven. The solder paste gets heated to temperatures north of 250o C and results in a molten form of the soldering paste. As the SMDs and the soldering paste form a soldered joint, the same conveyor belt takes the PCB to a cooling station. As the PCBs get cooled, the SMD and the soldering paste get unified with the solder joint.

The process becomes quite complex with each added layer in the printed circuit board. For instance – two layers would require separate stencils and reflow processes, as the configuration of components on both sides will be distinct.

4. Optical or X-Ray Inspection for Quality Control

It might seem that once the SMDs have been installed onto the soldering paste, the PCB assembly process must reach its conclusion. In reality, this process is yet to undergo a rigorous quality control step.

Even though conveyor belts are engineered with sophistication, even a minute disturbance in the second stage, where the SMDs are placed on top of the soldering paste, can result in malfunctioning connections. Such connections can lead to sub-optimal power transmission, short circuits, or even an absolute absence of a connection.

An Automatic Optical Inspection machine can be used for quality control here. It takes camera data from different angles and detects the PCBs that do not meet the connections' standard. For more complex components like BGAs and layered PCBs, an X-Ray machine is used to perform a similar analysis.

5. Component Installation Using a Through-Hole Process

While SMDs are generally the most common components, other components often fall under the category of through-hole components. These components are installed using through-holes and transmit power from one side of the board to another. Using the conventional soldering paste will not work as the paste will flow across the through-holes.

Hence, these components are either run through a manual soldering process or a wave-soldering process. Such approaches generally do not work for PCBs with more than one layer.

6. Functional Testing

A functional test puts the PCB through circumstances designed to replicate its use-case. Through several such tests, its voltage, direction of flow, and other performance parameters are measured using testers, power connections, and sensors. PCBs that do not meet the performance parameters are generally discarded or sent into rework.

In Conclusion

PCB assembly can be a complex process, even for simple PCB designs. This is the crucial reason why a manufacturer producing prototypes or working just on manufacturing circuit boards cannot automatically get equipped to execute the PCB assembly process. It usually requires a dedicated assembly line, access to specialized knowledge, and experience of having produced PCBs that do not require rework.

[pcb-power-usa]

PCB Fabrication is found in PCB Power Inc in USA. You will get new PCB Designs connecting to new trends in USA. Contact us for more.

Get the best PCB Fabrication in USA at PCB Power USA. PCB Design USA and other services are also available. For more details contact us.

[pcb-power-usa]

PCB Manufacturing in the USA

The 3-Step Process for PCB Manufacturing in the USA

Most PCB manufacturing in the USA ends at this stage. The inner layer goes through the same imaging process with white ink, later etched out. All the excess resist is chemically removed, and the guiding holes are put through. Towards the final stages, the PCB goes through drilling, plating, solder masking, and finally through the silkscreen installation stage.

PCB Manufacturing in the USA has changed by leaps and bounds in the last few years. Every major manufacturer has adopted systems and processes with the evolving trends in circuit design and microprocessors. But, the essential process is essentially uniform across the industry. 

While every manufacturer will have some variants around the primary process, here is how the overall PCB manufacturing process unfolds:

1. PCB Design USA, Review, and Printing

The PCB designing team in the USA puts together a comprehensive PCB design along with the Gerber data and sends it to the manufacturing team. Before starting the fabrication process, the manufacturer has to scrutinize the design and ensure no design-manufacturability challenges. The PCB design is printed on a transparent film with black ink representing the copper traces as these issues are resolved. The final movie has punched holes to support the drilling process. 

2. Copper-Layering, Resist Application, UV Blasting, and Alkaline Washing

The film is then put through the copper-layering process, where copper traces are placed alongside the blank ink on the film. Then, a photoresist is applied to the film to be processed through UV blasting. Finally, excess copper is removed using alkaline washing.

3. Inner Imaging, Etching, and Processing

Most PCB manufacturing in the USA ends at this stage. The inner layer goes through the same imaging process with white ink, later etched out. All the excess resist is chemically removed, and the guiding holes are put through. Towards the final stages, the PCB goes through drilling, plating, solder masking, and finally through the silkscreen installation stage.

[pcb-power-usa]

Want to find out Circuit board price in the USA, then connect with PCB Power as we are leading PCB manufacturer offering different PCBs and also affordable price rates. Book yours now on our website.

[pcb-power-usa]

Electronic Circuit Board - PCB Power USA is a leading Electronic Circuit Board Manufacturing Company in the USA. If you want to get yours, contact us.

[pcb-power-usa]

PCB Assembly Services - PCB Power Inc provides PCB Assembly Services and PCB Production is also done here. Get yours now by contacting us.

[pcb-power-usa]

Top PCB Manufacturers You Must Know About

PCBs are the fundamental component of several electronics products. Yet, their manufacturing value chains are not as popular as those of other industries. 

Why Should You Know More About the Top PCB Manufacturers?

Having an idea about the top PCB manufacturers can help you in:

Discovering best practices by following their work.

Performing supply chain risk analysis by examining their presence geographically.

Understanding industry-themes that are usually reflected in the operations of the giant incumbents.

Here are the Top PCB Manufacturers You Must Know About.

Jabil, Inc.

Jabil is one of the largest PCB manufacturers globally, with a nearly $6 billion market cap. The company is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, and employs more than 260,00 people across 30 countries. 

Plexus Corp

Plexus is an industry generalist which was founded in 1979 and is currently headquartered in Wisconsin. The company has a market cap of over $2.3 billion and has a wide range of services, including hardware & software design, PCB design, and PCB manufacturing.

TTM Technologies

TTM works mainly with other original equipment manufacturers and is known to deliver time-sensitive printed circuit boards. As one of the largest companies in the segment, it is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, and has a $1.5 billion market cap. 

Benchmark Electronics

Benchmark was founded as a subsidiary of a medical equipment manufacturer and later sold to a strategic buyer. The company was founded in 1987 and is currently valued at a little over $1 billion. It provides contract manufacturing services with its vast network of facilities across the globe. 

PCB Power Market

PCB Power Market has a legacy of over 35 years and operates in both the Indian-subcontinent and North America. It works as a unified platform providing both layout and manufacturing services. It is one of the very few scale-agnostic platforms in the industry, serving small, medium, and large scale PCB consumers with uncompromised quality.

[pcb-power-usa]

Motherboard V/S PCB

Motherboards and printed circuit boards are two of the most critical components of an electronics system. But, is there a difference between the two? The simple answer is a resounding yes. Even if you are not an electronics expert, it is important to understand the difference between the motherboard and the PCB board for your product. This can give you insights essential for product development and design. 

What is a Motherboard?

1. Components of a Motherboard

A motherboard is often referred to as a system board since it is the central unit of the entire system. The name 'motherboard' is derived from the fact that several electronic apparatuses that collectively make the product functional are mounted on the motherboard. These components often include memory chips installed on cards that fit perfectly onto the system board. A processing chip, which is a silicon or other semiconductor material-based chip used for imprinted circuits, is also installed on the motherboard. 

2. Integrated Circuits

What makes a motherboard seem similar to a printed circuit board, at least by the nature of properties they possess, is the integrated circuit. One integrated circuit can contain millions of resistors, capacitors, and transistors, along with other components resembling the incumbents on a motherboard.

What is a Printed Circuit Board?

1. Components of a PCB

A Printed Circuit Board is primarily responsible for directing electronic signals among the components of the device. A typical PCB board will have elements like switches that control the flow of current, LEDs and lights that show the direction or presence of current, batteries that provide the current, resistors that act as blocking systems, and capacitors & inductors which facilitate the flow.   

2. Benefits of Using a PCB 

Generally, a circuit board manufacturer will put together a silkscreen, a copper layer, and a substrate sandwiched with a soldering mask in between. Such boards are preferable to their alternatives as they have consistent performance, easier installation, and an agile design.

[pcb-power-usa]

Top PCB Manufacturers You Must Know About

PCBs are the fundamental component of several electronics products. Yet, their manufacturing value chains are not as popular as those of other industries. 

Why Should You Know More About the Top PCB Manufacturers?

Having an idea about the top PCB manufacturers can help you in:

1. Discovering best practices by following their work.

2. Performing supply chain risk analysis by examining their presence geographically.

3. Understanding industry-themes that are usually reflected in the operations of the giant incumbents.

Here are the Top PCB Manufacturers You Must Know About.

Jabil, Inc.

Jabil is one of the largest PCB manufacturers globally, with a nearly $6 billion market cap. The company is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, and employs more than 260,00 people across 30 countries. 

2. Plexus Corp

Plexus is an industry generalist which was founded in 1979 and is currently headquartered in Wisconsin. The company has a market cap of over $2.3 billion and has a wide range of services, including hardware & software design, PCB design, and PCB manufacturing.

3. TTM Technologies

TTM works mainly with other original equipment manufacturers and is known to deliver time-sensitive printed circuit boards. As one of the largest companies in the segment, it is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, and has a $1.5 billion market cap. 

4.Benchmark Electronics

Benchmark was founded as a subsidiary of a medical equipment manufacturer and later sold to a strategic buyer. The company was founded in 1987 and is currently valued at a little over $1 billion. It provides contract manufacturing services with its vast network of facilities across the globe. 

5. PCB Power Market

PCB Power Market has a legacy of over 35 years and operates in both the Indian-subcontinent and North America. It works as a unified platform providing both layout and manufacturing services. It is one of the very few scale-agnostic platforms in the industry, serving small, medium, and large scale PCB consumers with uncompromised quality.

[pcb-power-usa]

Do You Need an RF PCB? Here’s How to Decide.

Most product owners are also innovators. They want to provide the maximum possible features at the most cost-effective prices and want to ensure a healthy profit margin. But, quite often, fitting all three priorities together can be a challenge. 

When you are deciding on using an RF Circuit Board, you may land in a similar dilemma. On the one hand, you have the added functionalities which are not available with a more straightforward printed circuit board. But, an RF Circuit Board also comes with its own set of constraints. Here is how you can decide whether the upgrade is an intelligent move or not. 

Criteria for Deciding an RF PCB in Your Project

Budgetary Constraints: Even if you are working with a significant RF PCB manufacturer, you are bound to face some fiscal constraints. After all, an RF PCB will have multiple layers and hence will require a more sophisticated manufacturing process. Try to analyze whether you can consider managing to run the product-line profitably with the RF PCB.

2.  Manufacturing Excellence: Not all PCB manufacturers can act as RF PCB manufacturers. The latter requires a rigorous testing process and an assembly-line designed to handle complex and layered printed circuit boards. Even if you can afford to have an RF PCB in your product, you must ensure that your manufacturing contractor can match the manufacturing standards required to make a functional RF PCB.

3.  Design Manufacturability: With additional layers, you will witness the need for further testing resources from the very early stages of the manufacturing lifecycle. You will have to ensure assembly and functionalities for each layer and for the entire RF PCB as a whole.

4.  Use-Case: If you are developing or producing some form of a wireless communication device, there is a high chance that you will need an RF PCB and should go ahead with the process. 

Deciding whether one should use an RF PCB or not often requires some expert help. To get in touch with our in-house team of experts, click here. 

[pcb-power-usa]

Evolution of the IPC Standards

For most PCB Board manufacturers, not knowing about the IPC Standards is equivalent to committing a cardinal sin. The entire industry of PCB printing specialists, OEMs, design engineers, and other incumbents relies on the IPC Standards as the common ground for differentiating between acceptable and unacceptable PCB boards. 

What is IPC?

IPC is an industry consortium and self-regulating body that sets the standards of quality at a global scale for printed circuit boards. It was started in 1957 as the Institute of Printed Circuits with the primary agenda of standardizing the methods and processes that go into building reliable and consistently performing printed circuit boards.

With offices in the United States, Greater China, Southeast Asia, India, and Europe, it is now a global body responsible for standard-setting, human capital augmentation via training, certification, and networking. 

What are the IPC Standards?

IPC Standards is a comprehensive set of benchmarks, rules, and guides that govern the process or output quality of PCB Board design, fabrication, assembly, quality control, testing, and documentation. 

While the core document with all the IPC Standards is accessible only to the member organizations, it is worthwhile to follow the trajectory of evolution for the standards. It can give insights into how the standards have changed with the advent of innovative methods in the industry:

1958: IPC publishes 'How to Design and Specify Printed Circuits.

1964: IPC-A-600 published as the standard for Acceptability of Printed Boards.

1994: IPC provides certification for IPC-A-610B 'Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies.'

2002: IPC publishes IPC-A-620 ‘Requirements and Acceptance for Cable and Wire Harness Assemblies.

2008: IPC co-develops IPC-J-STD-075 ‘Classification of Non-IC Electronic Components for Assembly Processes.

2020: IPC publishes ‘H’ Revision for Electronic Assembly Standards IPC-J-STD-001 and IPC-A-610.

You can explore a snapshot of the summarized standards by clicking here (made available under the Creative Commons License)or get in touch with our team of experts to understand how the standards dictate the quality of output by clicking here.

[pcb-power-usa]

A Brief Guide to PCB Design

PCB designing is central to planning a printed circuit board that works according to your required functionalities. You can use a breadboard to optimize the layout and the elements as much as you want, but at some point, your work-product has to graduate into a PCB board. Ideally, you should work with a manufacturer to get the standard quality of the PCB at a cost-effective price. 

When you get into the process with a manufacturer, you will need a PCB design. The design is supposed to be the directive document that helps in:

Showing your manufacturer what the expected output is.

Verifying the manufacturability of the PCB before it goes into manufacturing.

Measuring the adherence to design once the PCB has been assembled.

Measuring the adherence to design once the PCB has been assembled.

To help you get started, here is a brief guide on PCB designing before PCB fabrication:

1. Create a Schematic Plan

A schematic plan is the first technical diagram you create to see how the PCB layout will unfold. If you are designing an industrial product, it might help in taking the services of a professional. But, if you are doing it for a smaller project, you can continually iterate and optimize.

2. Name the Symbols and Labels to be Printed.

Each symbol in your schematic plan has to be named. You should mention the symbols and labels that are to be printed on your PCB board. This is important for the manufacturer. 

3. Group Each Section, Keep the Traces Short, and the Current Flow Linear.

Once you have put together the schematic plan and the labeling, make sure you group each section of components as per the functional requirements you have for each section. Along with this, to make the current flow linear, keep the traces between sections short and avoid 45-degree angles. 

4. Adjust the Size According to the Enclosure.

If your PCB is a part of an enclosure, you must have the enclosure's dimensions readily available to ensure easy installation.

Get in Touch with an Expert!

The best way to optimize this process is by getting in touch with circuit board manufacturers. You can do so by clicking here!

[pcb-power-usa]

5 Things to Keep in Mind While Designing a PCB

Despite its intangible nature, the design is an important part of the printed circuit boards' planning and manufacturing process. Working on these five best practices will reduce the probability of reworks and faulty outputs exponentially.

1. Do Not Use 45o Angles.

It is very common for designers to use 45-degree angles that directly connect two sections and minimal trace lengths. However, what the designers do not envision is the manufacturing process where copper traces will be used. If such sharp angles are used, the end product may end up with non-uniform deposits of copper in corners and reduce the entire circuit board's performance. 

2. Minimize the Trace Lengths.

Once you have taken care of all the angles on your PCB board, try to optimize the trace length between components and sections. This will have a two-fold effect. On one level, your printed circuit boards will become more efficient in terms of current flow. On the second level, efficiency will lead to better performance at a lower cost. 

3. Group All the Components with Functional Uniformity.

An easy-to-understand but challenging to execute technique for creating smaller trace lengths is by grouping functionally similar components together in one sub-section. This allows you to segment your schematic plan into smaller parts that have dedicated operating goals. It helps in testing your PCB and locating errors more easily.

4. Use Silkscreens to Reduce Rework.

Silkscreens carry vital information such as a label of the critical components on the PCB board. Many designers skip using the silk screens since it is considered parallel to a documentation process. Using silkscreens will help the manufacturer work with more granular information, reduce the probability of errors, and reworks.

If you seek more expert advice on how to get a cost-effective PCB, get in touch with a team of seasoned professionals by clicking here.

[pcb-power-usa]

Printed Circuit Board Manufacturers USA focusing on high-quality quick-turn prototypes, small, medium production, and also PCB aerospace and defense.

[pcb-power-usa]

Performance of PCBs is all about quality, and well-matched parts ensure this. Substrates of good quality can be a sizable investment. With a choice of proper materials, and a check on manufacturing processes, it is possible to obtain quality and good performance from PCBs at the optimum costs.

[pcb-power-usa]

PCB Power USA leading PCB board design and manufacturer in USA. Buy efficient and affordable PCBs from the most trusted PCB manufacturer.

[pcb-power-usa]

PCB manufacturers use panelization as a popular method for effectively arranging small PCBs to fit standard laminate sizes, thereby making it easier to manufacture them in large numbers. Panelization not only helps to reduce material waste significantly, at the same time it also reduces processing labor for manufacturing the PCBs.