PCB Lifted Pad Repair: Putting the Copper Back 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 Eyelet Repair: A Tube 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. This article explains…

Via in Pad and Resin Plugging: Process and Design A via belongs between pads, not inside them. That is the normal rule, and it is the reason a ball grid array with a dense ball pitch can be impossible to escape: there simply is no room left between the pads…

ESD Protection at Board and Enclosure Level Static discharge is a fast, high-current event that lasts nanoseconds and arrives through paths the designer did not draw. It enters through a connector, a keypad, a seam in the enclosure or a metal part, and it leaves through whatever connection to earth…

10-Layer PCB Standard Thickness: What to Specify Ten layers is the point at which a board stops being an ordinary multilayer and starts needing a considered stackup. It offers enough layers for several signal groups, more than one power plane and the reference planes those signals need, and it is…

PCB Rework Record Keeping: Writing Down Every Repair 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 rework record keeping gives you a practical advantage when…

PCB Conformal Coating After Rework: Coating the Repaired Area 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 conformal coating after rework from the perspective of a PCBA…

PCB Silkscreen: Design Rules and Ink Selection The silkscreen is the last process step on most boards and the one that receives the least design attention, which is why it is also a frequent source of manufacturing complaints. Ink printed over a pad ruins solderability, text that is too small…

Grid Control PCB: Isolation, Surge and Reliability Design Equipment connected to an electricity network has to survive conditions that would destroy ordinary industrial electronics. Lightning induced surges, switching transients, voltage sags and faults that drive current far beyond the design value all arrive at the terminals, and the product is…

High-Frequency PCB Materials and Hybrid Stackups A high-frequency PCB is usually described by its material rather than by its geometry, and that emphasis is correct. Once a signal spends a meaningful part of its energy in the laminate instead of the copper, the loss tangent of the dielectric, not the…