PCB Tooling Strip Design: The Edge the Machine Holds 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 tooling strip design from the perspective of a PCBA factory…

PCB Datum and Dimensioning: Where the Measurements Start 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 Drill Size Selection: Choosing the Tool 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 drill size selection from the perspective of a PCBA factory floor, covering…

Stamp Holes and Breakaway Tabs for Small Boards Small boards cannot be assembled one at a time, so they are produced in a panel and separated afterwards. The separation point is designed, not accidental, and the two common ways to design it are a row of small holes and a…

Leakage Current Detection in EV Chargers Under EMC Stress An electric vehicle charger contains a power stage that switches at high frequency, contactors that open and close, an auxiliary supply and a communication module, all inside one enclosure. In that environment a safety function has to detect a smooth direct…

PCB Drill Chart: The Holes in One Table 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…

Footprint Origin Errors and Pick and Place Coordinates Pick and place machines do not know where a component is. They know where the origin of the footprint is, and they apply the coordinates in the assembly file to that point. If the origin sits somewhere unexpected, every placement on the…

Solder Mask Bridge Spacing on Fine Pitch Pads On a fine pitch footprint the solder mask is asked to do something difficult: sit as a narrow wall between two pads that may be less than a tenth of a millimetre apart, survive imaging and development, and remain in place through…

USB Cable Shielding and EMC in Industrial Instruments An industrial instrument with a USB port for configuration and data transfer is exposed to an environment that the interface was never designed for. Motor starting, variable frequency drive harmonics, and relay arcs all produce conducted and radiated disturbance on the same…

Tombstoning, Bridging and Assembly Defects From the Layout Assembly is where the design meets the machine, and the defects that appear on the first production run are almost always traceable to a decision made in the layout rather than to a machine setting that drifted. Knowing which layout features cause…