Basics Of A Printed Circuit Board

A printed circuit board in an electronic gadget is like salt in your food – you never know it’s there in your food, but when it is not, things start to taste weird. You use so many electronic devices each day – your phone, laptop, microwave oven, copiers and fax machines, etc. and never once do you think about how these things are working. Basically, all electronic devices need a command centre from where some instructions can be relayed to the device’s performing parts to get something done. The circuit board is that command centre, and it reacts in accordance with the inputs you provide to it. It then relays the relevant commands in the form of electrical signals to the device which then does what you wanted it to do. There is no electronic device on this planet that does not have a PCB in it, and if there is, it probably belongs to Optimus Prime. From things like children’s toys to James Bond’s car, everything is governed by PCBs.

A printed circuit board manufacturer will tell you how small exactly this board is as compared to other circuits. Its compactness is one of the most important aspects that has enabled the world to innovate and make things smaller and smaller. Busy lifestyle of the demand-generators asked for portable things, and PCB manufacturing companies answered by giving them electronics no bigger than their wristwatch, maybe even smaller. The extent to which experimentation and innovation is possible with these boards is beyond imagination. Manufacturers sell these boards to hobby enthusiasts, to colleges and universities and to other big corporations with ideas of their own.

Online mode of selling and buying PCBs has also taken birth with almost every business going online. Services like PCB design online has also started, which enables a greater base of customers to avail these services where it is physically difficult to obtain one. The design of a printed circuit board is best understood by someone who understands what the components of a circuit are and what they do, and what a board is for. There are three main elements of a PCB, the board, the component and the relays between these components. These relays are paths or traces that act like wires. Circuit design is done purpose-wise. The design for an alarm-clock circuit will differ from that of a toy car. Components to be used and their numbers depend on the kind of design. Depending on the complexity of the design, the board is chosen – single layered or multi-layered. A multi-layered board allows more room to house greater number of components when the design becomes complex. The materials used for these two boards also differ. For the "paths" or "traces", copper is most commonly used. Manufacturing process to add paths or traces to a board actually go the other way – the board is coated with copper entirely and then where the metal is not required, it is "etched" off. This can be called a wasteful process, but then the processes needed to actually paint copper along the traces are more complex and time consuming.

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About The Author

James Whitehall is an expert when it comes to printed circuit board manufacturing and design. He loves writing interesting articles and blogs about the topic and recommends PCBCart.com as the name to trust if you are looking printed circuit board fabrication services and support.