PCB Etching Cost: What Drives the Price of Every Trace The Step That Defines the Circuit Etching is where the circuit stops being an image and becomes copper. After the pattern has been exposed and developed onto the resist, the etchant removes the copper that is not protected, and what…

Wireless Charging PCB Design, Lead Time and Cost A Board That Is Partly an Antenna A wireless charging board is unusual because part of it is not a circuit at all. The spiral coil that couples energy magnetically is etched into the same copper as the driver electronics, and its…

ENIG Surface Finish: Process, Thickness and Defects A Thin Stack That Decides Assembly Yield Bare copper oxidises, and an oxidised pad does not solder. The surface finish exists to keep the copper clean until the assembly line reaches it, and to do so without changing the shape of the pad.…

Isola PCB Materials: Dielectric, Tg and Reliability A Materials Family, Not a Single Product Isola is a laminate and prepreg supplier, and the name covers a range of materials from standard FR-4 through to low loss laminates intended for high speed serial links. Speaking about an Isola board without naming…

Low Cost PCB From China: Cost Structure and Ordering Low Cost Is Not the Same as Cheap The two words get used interchangeably and they describe opposite things. A cheap board is one where the price was lowered by removing something: thinner plating, a lower grade laminate, less inspection, a…

LED Lighting PCB Guide: Materials and Thermal Design The Board Decides How Long the Light Lasts An LED is a temperature sensitive device. Its efficiency, its colour and its operating life all degrade as the junction temperature rises, and the board it is mounted on is the first stage of…

Ceramic PCB Guide: Alumina, AlN and Thick Film Options When the Substrate Stops Being a Container On most boards the laminate is a mechanical carrier with acceptable electrical properties. On a ceramic board the substrate is an active participant: it conducts heat, it holds off voltage, and its expansion behaviour…

Medical PCB Prototype to Production: One Stop Service The Bridge Between Validation and Volume Medical electronics has an unusual structure. A design is validated on a small number of boards, those boards carry the evidence that goes into a regulatory submission, and then the product has to be manufactured for…

High Frequency PCB Basics: Materials, Loss and Design Where Ordinary Design Rules Stop Working Below a few hundred megahertz, a trace is a conductor and the laminate is an insulator, and the design rules that follow from that assumption work well. Above roughly 500 MHz the same trace starts behaving…

Quick Turn PCB Services: China, USA and Europe Compared Speed Is Not the Same as Fast Turnaround A supplier who promises twenty four hour boards is not necessarily offering a service that a program can use. What matters is whether the promised window is repeatable, whether the process control holds…