Rigid-Flex Manufacturing Process: Steps and Tolerances A rigid-flex board is not a rigid board with a flexible tail glued on. It is a single construction in which rigid and flexible sections are laminated together and permanently interconnected, which means the process has to satisfy the requirements of both. That combination…

Copper Foil Peeling in PCB Fabrication: Causes and Fixes When copper separates from the laminate it usually does so in a way that looks like a design error and is actually a process one. A trace that lifts during assembly, a pad that peels when a component is reworked, a…

IoT PCB Design: Standards, Low Power and RF Integration An IoT product combines four things that are individually difficult and together are unforgiving: a radio, a battery, sensors with small analogue signals, and a fast digital core, all inside a package the size of a coin. An IoT PCB design…

PCBA Design Mistakes That Raise Assembly Cost Most of the cost of a PCB assembly is fixed by decisions taken during layout, long before a purchase order is raised. Panel geometry, component choice, the number of part types and the surface finish all determine how difficult the build is, and…

PCB Layout Checklist: Placement, Routing and Rule Checks A PCB layout checklist is useful for the same reason it is useful in an aircraft cockpit: it protects against the failure mode of a competent person concentrating on one thing and forgetting another. Layout work invites exactly that failure, because the…

Micro Hole Machining Methods in PCB Production Hole sizes on printed circuit boards have fallen steadily as boards moved from single-sided to multilayer construction and as density increased. The definitions used in production are simple: a diameter below 0.6 mm is a small hole, and one below 0.3 mm is…

Choosing Pad and Hole Sizes for PCB Prototypes Hole size looks like a trivial dimension. A lead of a known diameter goes into a hole of a slightly larger diameter, and the pad around it is drawn to suit. In practice the choice is constrained from both sides: the hole…

Why High Tg Material Matters in PCB Fabrication Every laminate has a temperature at which its mechanical behaviour changes. Below that point it is rigid and its dimensions are stable. Above it, the resin softens, expands faster and loses the stiffness that the rest of the process depends on. That…

Selecting Copper Thickness for PCB Prototypes Copper thickness is specified in ounces, a unit inherited from the weight of foil used per square foot. One ounce copper is about thirty-five microns thick, and it is the default for most boards. Raising it changes what the board can carry, how it…

PCB Production Process: Twelve Steps From Data to Final Test A bare board is produced by a sequence of operations where each step depends on the accuracy of the one before it. The PCB production process begins with engineering data and ends with an electrical test, and the yield of…