Panel Utilisation and Board Nesting Why the Panel Matters A board is not fabricated on its own. It is placed on a standard panel along with other boards or with several copies of itself, and the panel is what goes through the drilling, plating, imaging and etching steps. The number…

Surface Finishes: ENIG, OSP, HASL and Silver Why a Finish Is Needed Copper oxidises, and an oxidised pad does not wet. The surface finish is the thin layer that protects the copper between fabrication and soldering and that allows the solder to form a joint. Every finish is a compromise…

PCB Copper Trace Connector Launch: Where the Trace Meets the Plug 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.…

Microsection Analysis of Plated Holes What a Microsection Shows A microsection is a cross section through a plated hole or a via, prepared by encapsulating a sample, grinding and polishing it to a plane, and examining it under a microscope. It shows the copper plating on the barrel wall, the…

Hipot and Insulation Resistance Testing Two Tests, Two Purposes Insulation resistance and hipot tests are often mentioned together and they measure different things. The insulation resistance test applies a modest dc voltage and measures the resistance of the insulation, which detects contamination, moisture and a partial breakdown path. The hipot,…

Vibration and Shock Testing for Assemblies What Vibration Does to a Board A board mounted in a product is a plate supported at its edges or at a few points, and a plate has resonances. When the excitation matches a resonance, the displacement is amplified far beyond the input, and…

Thermal Cycling and Reliability Testing What Thermal Cycling Tests Thermal cycling takes an assembly through repeated temperature extremes and looks for the failures that the expansion and contraction cause. Because the board, the solder and the components expand at different rates, every cycle strains the joints, the plated barrels and…

Aqueous and Solvent Cleaning of Assemblies Why Cleaning Is a Decision Cleaning an assembly removes flux residue, particulates and other contamination that can cause corrosion, leakage currents and adhesion failures. It is not automatically necessary: a no clean flux is designed to leave a residue that is safe to leave…

PCB Dielectric Substrate Comparison: Choosing Between the Materials 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 dielectric substrate comparison gives you a practical advantage when…

Crimp Quality and Pull Testing Why Crimps Matter A crimp is a cold weld formed between the wire strands and the terminal when the tool compresses them. Done correctly, it is more reliable than a soldered joint, because it is ductile, it resists vibration and it does not embrittle the…