PCB Cleanroom Standards: Agreeing the Rules 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 cleanroom standards gives you a practical advantage when you choose a…

Counterfeit Component: Design Rules and Process Limits A counterfeit component is a part that is presented as something it is not. It may be a genuine device of a lower grade relabelled, a device recovered from scrap and cleaned, a functional copy made on a different process, or a part…

Chip Capacitor Flex Cracking: Stress Sources from Depaneling to Test A chip capacitor fails in a way that incoming inspection cannot predict. The ceramic body cracks during depaneling, board handling, connector insertion or in-circuit test, and the damage appears later as a short or an open once the assembly is…

V-Score vs Tab Routing: Choosing a Depaneling Method Depaneling looks like the last step in fabrication, but the method chosen at the panel stage sets the mechanical stress that every component near the board edge will see, and it decides how much of the panel is available for product. V-score…

ESD Programme Audit for an Assembly Floor An ESD programme is a set of arrangements that keep static charge away from sensitive parts, and an audit is the check that the arrangements are still in place. The two are often confused: a shop can have wrist straps, mats and ionizers…

Solder Beading in Reflow: Print, Paste and Profile Causes Solder beading is one of the few defects that is created before the board reaches the oven and only becomes visible after it leaves. The paste that forms a bead was printed in the wrong place, and every process between the…

Fiducial Design and Placement for Vision Alignment A fiducial is the only feature on the board that the placement machine is allowed to interpret, and everything the machine does afterwards is referenced to it. When a mark is undersized, partly covered by mask or placed too close to copper, the…

Via Plugging vs Tenting: What Solder Mask Should Do to a Via The decision about what solder mask should do to a via is usually made in a single line on the fabrication drawing, and it decides whether the assembly line sees a sealed surface or a row of open…

Reflow Carrier Pallets: Supporting Thin Boards Through the Oven A thin board behaves like a different material once it is hot. The same panel that feels rigid at room temperature loses most of its stiffness above the glass transition and sags between the conveyor rails, so the paste, the component…

PCB Cleanroom Records: Writing It Down 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 cleanroom records gives you a practical advantage when you choose a…