Charger PCB Price Guide: Board, Copper and Finish Costs A charger board is one of the few PCBs where cost, safety and thermal performance are judged together. Buyers who ask only for a unit price usually come back with a re-quote, because the real number depends on stackup, copper weight,…

PCB Thermal Design: Placement, Reliefs and Symmetry Heat is generated in a few small places on a board and has to leave through the whole of it. Thermal design is the business of arranging those places so that the heat finds a path out, and arranging the parts that cannot…

Selective Surface Finish: ENIG and OSP on the Same Board Surface finish is usually specified as a single choice for the whole board, but some products genuinely need two. A design may require a flat, gold plated surface on a fine pitch connector and a cheap organic finish everywhere else,…

Rogers Selective Hybrid Lamination for High Frequency Boards High frequency laminate is expensive, and a board seldom needs it everywhere. A product might carry a radio section, a long antenna feed and a fast serial link alongside a microcontroller, power conversion and a connector field that would work perfectly well…

PCB Moisture and Popcorning: Water That Turns to Steam 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 Production Process Flow: Single-Sided, Double-Sided and Multilayer A production process flow for a printed circuit board is a sequence of operations in which every step prepares the surface, the geometry or the copper for the step that follows. The sequence differs by board type, but the rules underneath it…

Hand-Made PCB Prototyping: Toner Transfer, Etching and Drilling Anyone can put a circuit together on a piece of laminate with a laser printer, an iron and a tray of etchant, and the exercise is worth doing at least once, because it makes the fabrication process visible. The steps below follow…

PCB Warpage in Reflow: A Board That Does Not Lie Flat 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.…

PCB Routing Rules That Keep a Layout Clean Routing rules exist because the same mistakes appear on every board, and most of them can be prevented by a short list that the layout is checked against. A rule that is written down can be enforced by a design rule check,…

PCB Thermal Via in A Pad: A Path Through the Board 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.…