Printed Circuit Design and Fabrication

 
If you want to know what the foundation of electrical engineering really is, printed circuit board (PCB) comes readily to the mind. Considered the ‘brain’ of any electrical device, PCB is the backbone of electrical engineering, much like HTML is for web development.

Why PCBs have a pride of place in the electrical engineering world is because there is no powered device that does not use a PCB of some sort. And it is not only the sophisticated gadgets like cell phones that use a PCB, but even the remote controls of children’s toys that use it.
 

What is a PCB?

Although PCB design existed since decades, its relevance still remains in the times of the Internet of Things (IoT). In fact, its demand is only increasing with the growth of internet connected devices.

The physical components of electronic devices are contained in a PCB, which is nothing but a board made of resin or plastic having conductive metal parts that convey electricity to the various components of the electrical device. To ease things the PCB is also superimposed by a silkscreen that contains the blueprint of what goes where.

PCB not only supplies power, but also undertakes multiple jobs, such as routing signals to different components, supporting the mechanics of the device and so on. This is what makes a PCB the ‘brain’ of a device, which just cannot function without it.

A PCB board can contain from one, 10 or more layers. Evidently, more complex the device, more the layers. PCBs can also be single- or double-sided.
 

Steps in designing a PCB

There is much that goes into the technology of designing and fabricating a PCB. PCB designing involves the following steps:
 

#1 Schematic design

The first crucial step is to create a schematic, which acts as a roadmap for the circuit. It depicts by means of symbols the various components of a PCB, such as switches, resistors, etc.
 

#2 Board design with EDA software

The next step is to translate this schematic into an electronic design automation (EDA) software package, such as Altium Designer, KiCAD, Eagle, Allegro and ExpresPCB.
 

#3 Printing, fabrication and assembly

In this stage, the number of layers that the PCB will have is decided. Here, all the components are positioned and signal traces dictated by the Gerber file.
 

#4 Testing

Once the PCB is fabricated, the last stage is testing. This is done by white-box testing that tests whether the PCB is structured properly. In this, every output is tested to ensure its functioning.
 

PCB CAM

PCB CAM is the stage in which PCB board is produced using input data.
 

Panelization

In this process, smaller boards are attached to one another in the form of a bigger array.
This process helps to considerably boost the speed of placement of individual modules.
 

Copper patterning

In copper patterning, the design in the fabricator’s Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM system) is duplicated on a shielding mask on the copper foil PCB layers. Consequent etching helps to get rid of the undesirable copper.
 

Doxals Engineering par excellence

Doxals Engineering, a Singapore-based electronic engineering solutions company, does all this and more in the most specialized way to provide flawless PCBs.