Rigid Flex PCB Material Selection Why Material Choice Decides the Board A rigid flex board is one laminated structure that contains rigid sections for components and flexible sections that fold, bend or twist. That combination is what makes it useful, and it is also what makes material selection difficult, because…

Microwave PCB Cost Why a Microwave Board Costs What It Does Two boards of the same size and layer count can differ in price by a factor of several, and the reason is usually the material. A microwave board is built on a laminate whose electrical properties are controlled to…

WiFi Router PCB Manufacturing A Radio and a Computer on One Board A wireless router has to do two very different jobs at once. It transmits and receives radio signals, which demands controlled impedance, low loss and careful antenna design, and it processes and forwards network traffic, which demands a…

Circular LED PCB Manufacturing When the Fixture Is Round, So Is the Board Many light fixtures are circular by design. Downlights, ceiling fittings, stage lamps, watch faces and vehicle lamp modules all present a round aperture, and a rectangular board inside a round housing wastes material and produces uneven light.…

Rigid Flex Prototype PCB Why a Prototype Stage Matters More Here A rigid flex board combines rigid sections that carry the components with flexible sections that fold, bend or twist, all in one laminated structure. The benefits are real: connectors are removed, the assembly can be folded into a shape…

FR-2 PCB Manufacturing The Cheapest Board That Will Do the Job Not every product needs a high performance substrate. A television remote control, a battery operated toy or a simple light strip has modest electrical demands, a benign environment and an overwhelming requirement for low cost. For those products the…

UAV Navigation System PCB Where the Aircraft Decides Where It Is An unmanned aircraft flies by comparing what it believes about its position with what its sensors tell it. The satellite receiver gives an absolute position but is easily disturbed and updates slowly, while the inertial sensors measure acceleration and…

PCB Mass Production Cost Where the Unit Price Comes From A prototype board is expensive per unit because it carries the tooling, the engineering and the setup for a handful of pieces. A production board is inexpensive per unit because those fixed costs are spread over thousands of pieces, and…

PCB Antenna Cost Guide An Antenna That Is Part of the Board Wireless connectivity is now standard in almost every product, and the antenna is the component that decides how well it works. A printed antenna has a clear advantage over a discrete one: it is formed from the copper…

Subwoofer Amplifier PCB Assembly Low Frequency Means High Current A subwoofer amplifier is asked to deliver large amounts of energy in the frequency range where the ear is least sensitive to distortion but most sensitive to the absence of output. The physics of moving a large cone at low frequency…