PCB Stackup Planning for the Job: Layers That Fit the Work 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 stackup planning for the job from the perspective…

PCB Via Plugging Material Selection: What Goes in the Hole 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…

Rigid-Flex PCB Manufacturing and Bend Area Design A rigid-flex board combines a rigid printed circuit board with a flexible circuit in one construction. The rigid sections carry the components and provide the mechanical support, while the flexible sections connect between them and allow the assembly to be folded into the…

SMT Prototype Service for Design Verification Boards During development an engineer needs a small number of boards quickly, to find out whether the design works. Hand soldering is slow, and for a 01005 component or a ball grid array it cannot produce a joint that is worth trusting. A proper…

PCB Via Capping and Plating Over: Sealing the Hole 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…

BGA Fan-Out Design at 0.4mm Pitch Ball grid array packages have become the standard for high performance devices, from processors and programmable logic to memory, because they allow the pin count to grow without the package growing with it. Designing a board for one is harder than designing for a…

PCB Tented Via Design: Covering the Holes 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 explains PCB…

BGA Assembly and SPI Inspection on an Edge Computing Board An edge computing board packs a controller, memory, power management, high speed interfaces and a communication module onto one board, and the pads vary widely in size and spacing between one region and the next. For work like this the…

PCB Prepreg Baking Before Lamination: Driving the Moisture Out 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 prepreg baking before lamination from the perspective of a PCBA…

Impedance Control Design Flow From Simulation to Layout In a high speed digital or radio frequency design, the impedance along a trace is not a detail that can be left to the fabricator. The characteristic impedance of the transmission line has to be designed, and a mismatch produces reflections, ringing…