Battery PCBA: Protection, Gauging and Balancing A battery PCBA is the small board that sits between the cells and the rest of the product and decides whether the battery is used safely. It protects the cells from over-current and over-discharge, measures how much energy remains, balances the cells against each…

Aerospace PCB: Design and Reliability Requirements An aerospace PCB is not simply a well made circuit board. It is a board that has been designed, qualified and documented to survive an environment that punishes every weak point at once: wide temperature swings, sustained vibration, low air pressure, humidity and, in…

PCB Fabrication Specifications: What to Put on the Drawing Most fabrication problems are specification problems. A board that is electrically correct can still be unusable because the copper weight was never stated, the impedance requirement appeared only in an email, or the outline tolerance was left to the fabricator to…

PCB Conformal Coating Adhesion: Making the Film Stay On Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years. This article…

PCB Stencil Design Rules: The Sheet That Sets the Paste Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years. This…

PCB Masking Tape Versus Liquid Mask: Two Ways to Keep It Off Electronics manufacturing has become a discipline of small details. Solder paste volumes, placement accuracy, temperature profiles and inspection limits all add up to the final result. This guide looks at PCB masking tape versus liquid mask from the…

Button PCB: Membrane Switches, Domes and Contact Design A button PCB is the part of a product the user touches most often and the part most likely to be designed last. It carries the switch contacts, the light guides for backlighting and often the entire membrane assembly, and its reliability…

PCB Solder Paste Shelf Life: Knowing When the Paste Is Old Electronics manufacturing has become a discipline of small details. Solder paste volumes, placement accuracy, temperature profiles and inspection limits all add up to the final result. This guide looks at PCB solder paste shelf life from the perspective of…

PCB Step Stencil for Paste Volume: Two Thicknesses in One Sheet Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years.…

AI Hardware PCB Design: Power, Memory and High-Speed Interfaces Boards that run inference or training workloads are built around a small number of extremely demanding components. An AI accelerator, its memory and its power delivery network together set requirements that dominate the layout, and everything else on the board has…