Printed Circuit Boards Manufacturing
If you are wondering what exactly Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are and how they are manufactured, then you are not alone. Many people have a vague understanding of "Circuit Boards", but really aren't experts when it comes to being able to explain what a Printed Circuit Board is. PCBs are usually used to support and electronically connect the connected electronic components to the board. Some examples of electronic components for PCB's are capacitors and resistors. These and other various electronic components are connected through conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces that are etched from sheets of copper that are laminated onto non conductive substrate. When the board has these conductive and non conductive pathways, the boards are sometimes then referred to as Printed Wiring Board (PWB). Once the board has the wiring and electronic components connected, the Printed Circuit Board is now called a Printed Circuit Assembly (PCA) or Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA). Printed Circuit Boards are most of the time inexpensive, but are still extremely reliable. The initial cost is high because the layout effort requires a lot of time and resources, but PCBs are still a more cost affective and faster to manufacture for high volume production. Many of the industry's PCB Design, quality control, and assembly standards are set by the Association Connecting Electronics Industries (IPC) organization.