Printed Circuit Boards

 Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are usually a flat laminated composite made from non-conductive substrate materials with layers of copper circuitry buried internally or on the external surfaces. They can be as simple as one or two layers of copper, or in high density applications they can have fifty layers or more. The flat composite surface is ideal for supporting the components that are soldered and attached to the PCB, while the copper conductors connect the components to one another electronically. The six basic components of a standard printed circuit board are: Prepreg Laminate Copper foil Soldermask Nomenclature Final finish Prepreg is a thin glass fabric that is coated with resin and dried, in special machines called prepreg treaters. The glass is the mechanical substrate that holds the resin in place. The resin – usually FR4 epoxy, polyimide, Teflon, and others – starts as a liquid that is coated onto the fabric. As the prepreg moves through the treater, it enters an oven secti

 Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the foundational building block of most modern electronic devices.  Whether simple single layered boards used in your garage door opener, to the six layer board in your smart watch, to a 60 layer, very high density and high-speed circuit boards used in super computers and servers, printed circuit boards are the foundation on which all of the other electronic components are assembled onto. Semiconductors, connectors, resistors, diodes, capacitors and radio devices are mounted to, and “talk” to one another through the PCB. PCB’s have mechanical and electrical attributes that make them ideal for these applications.  Most PCB’s manufactured in the World are rigid, roughly 90% of the PCB’s manufactured today are rigid boards. Some PCB’s are flexible, allowing the circuits to be bent and folded into shape, or sometimes they are used where the flexible circuit will survive hundreds of thousands of flex cycles, without any break in the circuits.  These flexib