PCB Teardrop at Pad Entry: Strengthening the Joint Buyers and engineers often focus on the finished product and forget the production line behind it. In practice, most field failures can be traced back to process decisions made during assembly. Understanding PCB teardrop at pad entry gives you a practical advantage…

Half-Bridge Converter Layout: Power, Gate Drive and Ground A half-bridge converter is a switching power stage, and its layout decides whether the efficiency calculated on paper survives contact with the board. The currents are large, the edges are fast, and the same node that carries the main power also carries…

Replacing Via in Pad With an Ordinary Via: When It Pays A via placed inside a component pad is one of the more expensive features a board can carry, and it is often specified for good reasons. It shortens the path from a ball or a land to the layer…

PCB Thieving Pattern Design: Adding Copper to Balance Buyers and engineers often focus on the finished product and forget the production line behind it. In practice, most field failures can be traced back to process decisions made during assembly. Understanding PCB thieving pattern design gives you a practical advantage when…

Heavy Copper in HDI Boards: Compatibility and Design Rules Two directions in board technology pull against each other. High density interconnect pushes toward thin dielectrics, small vias and fine traces, because that is how more connections fit into less area. Heavy copper pushes toward thick conductors and wider features, because…

PCB Warpage: Causes, Consequences and Controls A board that is flat when it leaves the fabricator is not necessarily flat when it reaches the assembly line. Warpage develops across the whole life of a panel — during pressing, while solder mask and legend are cured, through the thermal shock of…

PCB Backdrilling for High Speed: Removing the Stub 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 backdrilling for high speed from the perspective of a PCBA factory…

Routing Priority and Crosstalk Control in PCB Layout Routing that begins before the board has been thought about produces work that has to be undone. The usual sequence is familiar: power and general signals are routed first, and somewhere in the middle of the board a group of high-speed nets…

PCB Edge Plating: Metal on the Side Wall Buyers and engineers often focus on the finished product and forget the production line behind it. In practice, most field failures can be traced back to process decisions made during assembly. Understanding PCB edge plating gives you a practical advantage when you…

HDI Layout: Shrinkage Compensation and Microvia Rules High density interconnect changes the questions a layout has to answer. On a conventional board the constraint is usually space: how to fit the routing into the area available. On an HDI board the constraint becomes agreement — between the stack-up and the…