PCB Documents

Comprehensive PCB Terminology: Your Ultimate Guide to Printed Circuit Board Lingo

cstanton — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 10:11:58 GMT

Current Revision posted to PCB Documents by cstanton on 9/21/2023 10:11:58 AM

This brief list is just the tip of the iceberg, and you will most definitely become familiar with many more as you progress into more complex designs.

Annular Ring

The ring of copper that is located around a plated through hole in a PCB. This ring is usually what you will heat up with your soldering iron when hand soldering in a component. It provides a larger surface area for the solder to “grab” onto.

BOM (Bill of Materials)

A comprehensive list of all components and materials required to assemble a PCB, including part numbers, quantities, and sourcing information.

Copper Pour

The process of filling unused PCB areas with a copper plane to improve grounding, reduce interference, and enhance heat dissipation.

Component Placement

The process of arranging electronic components on a PCB to optimize functionality, minimize interference, and ensure efficient manufacturing.

DIP (Dual In-line Package)

A common package type for integrated circuits (ICs) with two parallel rows of pins that can be inserted into holes in the PCB.

Drill Hit

These are defined as the places on a design where a hole should be drilled or where they actually were drilled on the board. In instances of inaccuracies, the drilled hole can be off by a few tenths of a millimeter or more due to dull drill bits.

DRC - Design Rule Check

A software check of your design to make sure it does not contain errors such as traces that incorrectly touch, traces too skinny, or drill holes that are too small. This digital inspection is often governed by the manufacturer who will be creating your PCBs for you.

ERC - Electrical Rule Check

Generally run at the end of the design phase, this automated check will make sure your design follows the basic rules of electronics. If an error is detected, such as a “short circuit," VCC and GND together, it will give you a warning and highlight the bad connection on the schematic.

ESD (Electrostatic Discharge)

The sudden flow of electricity between two objects caused by a static charge imbalance. ESD protection is crucial for sensitive electronic components.

ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance)

The internal resistance of a capacitor, an important parameter in selecting capacitors for specific applications.

Fab House - Fabrication House

Short for Fabrication House. This term is often used when talking about the manufacturing facility that will be producing your PCBs.

Finger

These are exposed copper pads along the edge of a board which are used to create a connection between two circuit boards. A very common example of fingers are found on the edges of computer expansion cards such as video cards, or on the connector on cartridge-based video games.

Footprints

A footprint is most commonly used to refer to the pad shape and size in direct relation to the component of which it represents. Ensuring that the footprint used in the PCB design matches the component it represents is critical in creating a successful PCB.

Gerber File

The Gerber format is an open ASCII vector format for 2D binary images. It is the de facto standard used by industry software to describe the printed circuit board images: copper layers, soldermask, legend, etc. Gerber is used in PCB fabrication data.

GND - Ground

This refers to the ground signal. It is the reference at 0 volts. Therefore, all other voltages in the circuit are relative to GND.

HASL - Hot Air Solder Leveling

A method of coating exposed copper with solder by inserting a panel into a bath of molten solder then passing the panel rapidly past jets of hot air.

IPC Standards

A set of industry standards published by the IPC (Association Connecting Electronics Industries) that define requirements for PCB design, manufacturing, and assembly.

JTAG (Joint Test Action Group)

A standardized method for testing and programming integrated circuits on a PCB, commonly used for debugging and boundary scanning.

Mouse Bites

This is an alternative method to a term we will cover a little later down this list called v-scoring. Mouse Bites are used for separating boards from panels quickly and are the result of a number of drill hits that are positioned so that they are almost touching, but leave a very thin, and thus weak spot between separate boards. This allows the boards to be broken easily after they have been manufactured.

Net

This is a virtual representation of a wire. It is used to virtually connect each lead of a component to another part of the schematic.

Pad

A pad is a portion of exposed copper on the surface of a PCB to which a component is soldered. Pads can feature through holes, but are often square or rectangular in shape. Pads are most common on footprints for integrated circuits, or SMD components.

Panel

This is defined as a larger circuit board composed of many smaller boards which will be broken apart before use. Automated circuit board handling equipment frequently has trouble with smaller boards, and by aggregating several boards together at once, the process can be sped up significantly. “Panelizing” several board designs into a single board is also a way to cut down on the cost of manufacturing, but check with your manufacturer first to see if this is allowed at their facility. Some of the small run manufacturing facilities will panelize several customer’s designs together in order to reduce their cost, and to make things easier for their equipment to process.

Paste Stencil

For PCBs that utilize surface mount parts, a thin, metal (or sometimes Mylar or plastic) stencil is created from the CAD files which features small holes in the shape of the pad’s that the components will be soldered to. This allows the manufacturing facility or the customer to easily and quickly apply solder paste to the pads of the PCB. This makes placing the SMD components by mechanical methods or by hand much easier, and ensures a consistent application of solder to each component and pad.

Pick-and-Place Machine

If you are having your PCBs populated after they have been manufactured, then a Pick-and-Place machine will be used to populate the components to the board before being soldered in a reflow oven. This automated process ensures that the correct component is placed in proper orientation to the PCB, which helps to reduce errors that are sometimes found when populating an SMD board by hand.

This is a connection point in an IC or component. Typically ICs have as little as 3 pins to as many as 128 pins or more. Often in your designs, you will add net connections to these pins, but all of the pins are not always utilized by your circuit.

Plane

This is a continuous block of copper on a circuit board and is usually defined by borders rather than by a path. This is sometimes also known as a “pour,” and can be used to save time in the etching process as it means that there is less copper to remove from the substrate. Often times, you will see tutorials that use a copper pour as a ground plane, which will help to reduce the number of traces on a board. Planes can also be used as heat sinks, RF, and EM shielding as well.

PTH - Plated Through-Hole

The Plated Through-Hole is a design component that you are very familiar with if you have ever soldered a through-hole component such as a resistor, diode, LED, etc, onto a PCB. These holes often feature an annular ring and the holes are plated through from one side to another and can be used as vias if needed.

Reflow

When soldering SMD components to a PCB, a process called reflowing is used. In its simplest form, the PCB is placed in an oven which is then heated to the melting point of the solder paste that was applied to the board earlier. This process has become highly refined over the years, and temperature profiles have been created for various solder paste compositions to ensure that the solder properly flows around components and anneals as it cools to prevent cracking or so-called “cold solder joints.”

Silkscreen

As its name implies, the letters, numbers, symbols, and imagery on a circuit board are usually applied with a silk-screening technique. This layer is almost always applied on top of the solder mask layer. While it is possible to find a PCB manufacturer that offers different colors of silk-screening, the industry standard color is white.

Slot

A slot is defined as any hole in a PCB which is not a round hole. Slots may or may not be plated, but they almost always feature round ends due to the router bits that are used to cut them. Slots sometimes add cost to the board because they require extra cut-out time or have extra plating requirements.

Solder Paste

As its name implies, solder paste is a spreadable material made up of a matrix of small balls of solder that are suspended in a gel medium made from flux. Solder paste is generally applied with a stencil but can be applied with a syringe or small brush. Solder paste is almost always applied to surface mount pads on a PCB before the components are placed by a Pick-and-Place machine. During the reflow process, the solder in the paste melts along with the flux, creating clean electrical and mechanical joints between the pads and the components.

Solder Mask

This is a layer of protective polymer material that is applied over the etched copper surface of a PCB and is designed to prevent short circuits, corrosion, and other problems. Its most useful feature is its ability to resist molten solder from sticking to it, creating a method to easily prevent solder bridges between traces in the soldering process. This layer is sometimes referred to as the “resist” layer and is most famous for its forest green color. Many manufacturers now offer solder masking in several different colors.

Surface Mount (SMD - Surface Mount Device)

This is a form of components that are designed to be placed on top of the PCB for soldering which does not require a through hole for a component’s legs to fit through. Also called SMD, this form factor has allowed components to be shrunken in size by several orders of magnitude, thus allowing more component-dense designs. This is the dominant method of assembly in use today and allows boards to be populated quickly and easily via automated processes.

Trace

This is the heart and soul of a PCB. A trace is a continuous path of copper on a circuit board, that has been isolated from the rest of the copper by either chemically etching or mechanical removal of the copper layer around it. Traces are used to connect components together to form circuits. Traces can vary in width and thickness based on the current load they are designed to handle.

VCC/Vin:

This refers to the input voltage from an external source. The input voltage can be obtained from external sources such as mains power outlets, wall transformers, batteries, dedicated power supplies, or even solar panels. In general, anything that can supply power to the circuit. VCC is relative to GND.

V-score:

Much like the mouse bites we covered earlier, a V-Score is a partial cut through a board, allowing the board to be easily snapped along a line. A V-Score is created with a V-shaped router bit.

Via: Similar to a plated through hole, a via is a hole in a PCB that is used to pass a signal from one layer to another. When a via is covered with solder mask, it is considered a tented via and is designed to protect layer-to-layer signal transmission from errant solder bridges.

Wave Soldering

This is the precursor to reflowing and is often used when a PCB is populated with through-hole components, although SMD components can be wave soldered if they are glued to the PCB. This process gets its name from the PCB being passed over a standing wave of molten solder. The PCB height is adjusted so that the components' leads and the bottom of the PCB barely touch the solder wave.

Tags: annular ring, printed circuit board terminology, pcb net connections, Gerber file format, fabrication house (Fab house), plated through-hole (pth), pcb glossary, ground signal (gnd), exposed copper fingers, design rule check (DRC), electrical rule check (ERC), mouse bites vs v-scoring, component footprints, drill hit, hot air solder leveling (hasl)

PCB Glossary

cstanton — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 09:36:58 GMT

Revision 2 posted to PCB Documents by cstanton on 8/4/2023 9:36:58 AM

Terminology

This brief list is just the tip of the iceberg, and you will most definitely become familiar with many more as you progress into more complex designs.

- Annular Ring - The ring of copper that is located around a plated through hole in a PCB. This ring is usually what you will heat up with your soldering iron when hand soldering in a component. It provides a larger surface area for the solder to “grab” onto.
- DRC - This is an abbreviation for “design rule check”. The DRC is a software check of your design to make sure the design does not contain errors such as traces that incorrectly touch, traces too skinny, or drill holes that are too small. This digital inspection is often governed by the manufacturer who will be creating your PCBs for you. Quality manufacturers will usually list out the specifications your design must meet, and most even provide a DRC file for the particular CAD program you used to design your PCB in.
- Drill Hit - These are defined as the places on a design where a hole should be drilled, or where they actually were drilled on the board. In instances of inaccuracies, the drilled hole can be off by a few tenths of a millimeter or more due to dull drill bits.
- ERC - Generally run at the end of the design phase, this automated check will make sure your design follows the basic rules of electronics. If an error is detected, such as a “short circuit," VCC and GND together, it will give you a warning and highlight the bad connection on the schematic. In most instances, it will also give warnings (not errors) if some of the pins on ICs, for example, do not have connections.
- Fab House - Short for Fabrication House. This term is often used when talking about the manufacturing facility that will be producing your PCBs.
- Finger - These are exposed copper pads along the edge of a board which are used to create a connection between two circuit boards. A very common example of fingers are found on the edges of computer expansion cards such as video cards, or on the connector on cartridge-based video games. (That thing you use to blow on.)
- Footprints - A footprint is most commonly used to refer to the pad shape and size in direct relation to the component of which it represents. Ensuring that the footprint used in the PCB design matches the component it represents is critical in creating a successful PCB. There may even be instances where you must create a custom footprint if one has not been created for the design program you are using.
- Gerber File - The Gerber format is an open ASCII vector format for 2D binary images. It is the de facto standard used by industry software to describe the printed circuit board images: copper layers, soldermask, legend, etc. Gerber is used in PCB fabrication data.
- GND - This refers to the ground signal. It is the reference at 0 volts. Therefore, all other voltages in the circuit are relative to GND.
- HASL - (Hot Air Solder Leveling) – A method of coating exposed copper with solder by inserting a panel into a bath of molten solder then passing the panel rapidly past jets of hot air.
- Mouse Bites - This is an alternative method to a term we will cover a little later down this list called v-scoring. Mouse Bites are used for separating boards from panels quickly and are the result of a number of drill hits that are positioned so that they are almost touching, but leave a very thin, and thus weak spot between separate boards. This allows the boards to be broken easily after they have been manufactured.
- NET - This is a virtual representation of a wire. It is used to virtually connect each lead of a component to another part of the schematic.
- Pad - A pad is a portion of exposed copper on the surface of a PCB to which a component is soldered. Pads can feature through holes, but are often square or rectangular in shape. Pads are most common on footprints for integrated circuits, or SMD components.
- Panel - This is defined as a larger circuit board composed of many smaller boards which will be broken apart before use. Automated circuit board handling equipment frequently has trouble with smaller boards, and by aggregating several boards together at once, the process can be sped up significantly. “Panelizing” several board designs into a single board is also a way to cut down on the cost of manufacturing, but check with your manufacturer first to see if this is allowed at their facility. Some of the small run manufacturing facilities will panelize several customer’s designs together in order to reduce their cost, and to make things easier for their equipment to process.
- Paste Stencil - For PCBs that utilize surface mount parts, a thin, metal (or sometimes Mylar or plastic) stencil is created from the CAD files which features small holes in the shape of the pad’s that the components will be soldered to. This allows the manufacturing facility or the customer to easily and quickly apply solder paste to the pads of the PCB. This makes placing the SMD components by mechanical methods or by hand much easier, and ensures a consistent application of solder to each component and pad.
- Pick-and-Place Machine - If you are having your PCBs populated after they have been manufactured, then a Pick-and-Place machine will be used to populate the components to the board before being soldered in a reflow oven. This automated process ensures that the correct component is placed in proper orientation to the PCB which helps to reduce errors that are sometimes found when populating a SMD board by hand.
- Pin - This is a connection point in an IC or component. Typically ICs have as little as 3 pins to as many as 128 pins or more. Often in your designs, you will add net connections to these pins, but all of the pins are not always utilized by your circuit.
- Plane - This is a continuous block of copper on a circuit board and is usually defined by borders rather than by a path. This is sometimes also known as a “pour,” and can be used to save time in the etching process as it means that there is less copper to remove from the substrate. Often times, you will see tutorials that use a copper pour as a ground plane, which will help to reduce the number of traces on a board. Planes can also be used as heat sinks, RF, and EM shielding as well.
- PTH - The Plated Through-Hole is a design component that you are very familiar with if you have ever soldered a through hole component such as a resistor, diode, LED, etc, onto a PCB. These holes often feature an annular ring and the holes are plated through from one side to another, and can be used as vias if needed.
- Reflow - When soldering SMD components to a PCB, a process called reflowing is used. In its simplest form, the PCB is placed in an oven which is then heated to the melting point of the solder paste that was applied to the board earlier. This process has became highly refined over the years, and temperature profiles have been created for various solder paste compositions to ensure that the solder properly flows around components, and anneals as it cools to prevent cracking or so-called “cold solder joints.”
- Silkscreen - As its name implies, the letters, number, symbols and imagery on a circuit board are usually applied with a silk screening technique. This layer is almost always applied on top of the solder mask layer. While it is possible to find a PCB manufacturer that offers different colors of silk-screening, the industry standard color is white.
- Slot - A slot is defined as any hole in a PCB which is not a round hole. Slots may or may not be plated, but they almost always feature round ends due to the router bits that are used to cut them. Slots sometimes add cost to the board because they require extra cut-out time or have extra plating requirements.
- Solder Paste - As its name implies, solder paste is a spreadable material made up of a matrix of small balls of solder that are suspended in a gel medium made from flux. Solder paste is generally applied with a stencil, but can be applied with a syringe or small brush. Solder paste is almost always applied to surface mount pads on a PCB before the components are placed by a Pick-and-Place machine. During the reflow process, the solder in the paste melts along with the flux, creating clean electrical and mechanical joints between the pads and the components.
- Solder Mask - This is a layer of protective polymer material that is applied over the etched copper surface of a PCB and is designed to prevent short circuits, corrosion, and other problems. It’s most useful feature is its ability to resist molten solder from sticking to it, creating a method to easily prevent solder bridges between traces in the soldering process. This layer is sometimes referred to as “resist” layer, and is most famous for its forest green color. Many manufacturers now offer solder masking in several different colors.
- Surface Mount - This is a form of components that are designed to be placed on top of the PCB for soldering which does not require a through hole for a component’s legs to fit through. Also called SMD, this form factor has allowed components to be shrunken in size by several orders of magnitude, thus allowing more component dense designs. This is the dominant method of assembly in use today, and allows boards to be populated quickly and easily via automated processes.
- Trace - This is the heart and soul of a PCB. A trace is a continuous path of copper on a circuit board, that has been isolated from the rest of the copper by either chemically etching, or mechanical removal of the copper layer around it. Traces are used to connect components together to form circuits. Traces can vary in width, and thickness based on the current load they are designed to handle.
- VCC/Vin - This refers to the input voltage from an external source. The input voltage can be obtained from external sources such as mains power outlets, wall transformers, batteries, dedicated power supplies, or even solar panels. In general, anything that can supply power to the circuit. VCC is relative to GND. You can see an example of VCC in the below image.
- V-score - Much like the mouse bites we covered earlier, a V-Score is a partial cut through a board, allowing the board to be easily snapped along a line. A V-Score is created with a V shaped router bit.
- Via - Similar to a plated through hole, a via is a hole in a PCB that is used to pass a signal from one layer to another. When a via is covered with solder mask, it is considered a tented via and is designed to protect layer to layer signal transmission from errant solder bridges. Vias where one might want connectors and components attached are not covered in solder mask.
- Wave Soldering - This is the precursor to reflowing, and is often used when a PCB is populated with through hole components, although SMD components can be wave soldered if they are glued to the PCB. This process gets its name from the PCB being passed over a standing wave of molten solder. The PCB height is adjusted so that the components leads and the bottom of the PCB barely touch the solder wave.

Tags: pcb terminology, Fab House PCB manufacturing, Gerber file format, Solder paste application, pcb glossary, Wave soldering process, DRC errors, PCB ground signal, PCB design rule check, HASL soldering, Electronics rule check, Mouse bites PCB separation, Annular ring PCB, PCB footprints, PCB drill hits

PCB Assembly Terms

pchan — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 19:00:46 GMT

Revision 4 posted to PCB Documents by pchan on 11/18/2021 7:00:46 PM

I understand that the following area of the site lists element14's trusted third party suppliers with whom element14 has partnered to provide this service. I agree to allow my email to be passed over to the trusted suppliers where it will be used in accordance with their own privacy policy.

I agree that my board is not designed or modified for Military Use and the operation of my prototype is not described in the Dual Use export control list.

Military Use:

Controls cover the export of any goods, software or technology designed or modified for military use. If your design is military, we will be unable to process it. For further information on military export controls in the United States you can go to https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/ddtc_public or for the United Kingdom, go to http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1084228483. For other countries, please contact your own Export Control Authority

Dual Use:

Export controls apply to a range of Dual-Use items (items designed for commercial use but can then be used by Commercial or military end users). They tend to apply to high technology items and can cover electronic, computer, telecommunication and encryption technologies amongst others. We are unable to produce any prototype boards if it is described on the Dual Use Lists. For further information on the Dual Use Lists in the United States, go to http://www.bis.doc.gov/ or for the United Kingdom, go to http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1084228483. For other countries, please contact your own Export Control Authority

Tags: pcb assembly terms

PCB Assembly Terms

pchan — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 19:00:06 GMT

Revision 3 posted to PCB Documents by pchan on 11/18/2021 7:00:06 PM

I agree that my board is not designed or modified for Military Use and the operation of my prototype is not described in the Dual Use export control list.

Military Use:

Dual Use:

Tags: pcb assembly terms

PCB Assembly Terms

pchan — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 18:58:30 GMT

Revision 2 posted to PCB Documents by pchan on 11/18/2021 6:58:30 PM

I agree that my board is not designed or modified for Military Use and the operation of my prototype is not described in the Dual Use export control list.

Military Use:

Controls cover the export of any goods, software or technology designed or modified for military use. If your design is military, we will be unable to process it. For further information on military export controls in the United States you can go to http://pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar.html or for the United Kingdom, go to http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1084228483. For other countries, please contact your own Export Control Authority

Dual Use:

Tags: pcb assembly terms

PCB Assembly Terms

pchan — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 18:56:21 GMT

Revision 1 posted to PCB Documents by pchan on 11/18/2021 6:56:21 PM

I agree that my board is not designed or modified for Military Use and the operation of my prototype is not described in the Dual Use export control list.

Military Use:

Controls cover the export of any goods, software or technology designed or modified for military use. If your design is military, we will be unable to process it. For further information on military export controls in the United States you can go to http://pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar.html or for the United Kingdom, go to http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1084228483. For other countries, please contact your own Export Control Authority

Dual Use:

Tags: pcb assembly terms

PCB Glossary

kellyhensen — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 21:16:22 GMT

Revision 1 posted to PCB Documents by kellyhensen on 10/6/2021 9:16:22 PM

Terminology

This brief list is just the tip of the iceberg, and you will most definitely become familiar with many more as you progress into more complex designs.

- Annular Ring - The ring of copper that is located around a plated through hole in a PCB. This ring is usually what you will heat up with your soldering iron when hand soldering in a component. It provides a larger surface area for the solder to “grab” onto.
- DRC - This is an abbreviation for “design rule check”. The DRC is a software check of your design to make sure the design does not contain errors such as traces that incorrectly touch, traces too skinny, or drill holes that are too small. This digital inspection is often governed by the manufacturer who will be creating your PCBs for you. Quality manufacturers will usually list out the specifications your design must meet, and most even provide a DRC file for the particular CAD program you used to design your PCB in.
- Drill Hit - These are defined as the places on a design where a hole should be drilled, or where they actually were drilled on the board. In instances of inaccuracies, the drilled hole can be off by a few tenths of a millimeter or more due to dull drill bits.
- ERC - Generally run at the end of the design phase, this automated check will make sure your design follows the basic rules of electronics. If an error is detected, such as a “short circuit," VCC and GND together, it will give you a warning and highlight the bad connection on the schematic. In most instances, it will also give warnings (not errors) if some of the pins on ICs, for example, do not have connections.
- Fab House - Short for Fabrication House. This term is often used when talking about the manufacturing facility that will be producing your PCBs.
- Finger - These are exposed copper pads along the edge of a board which are used to create a connection between two circuit boards. A very common example of fingers are found on the edges of computer expansion cards such as video cards, or on the connector on cartridge-based video games. (That thing you use to blow on.)
- Footprints - A footprint is most commonly used to refer to the pad shape and size in direct relation to the component of which it represents. Ensuring that the footprint used in the PCB design matches the component it represents is critical in creating a successful PCB. There may even be instances where you must create a custom footprint if one has not been created for the design program you are using.
- Gerber File - The Gerber format is an open ASCII vector format for 2D binary images. It is the de facto standard used by industry software to describe the printed circuit board images: copper layers, soldermask, legend, etc. Gerber is used in PCB fabrication data.
- GND - This refers to the ground signal. It is the reference at 0 volts. Therefore, all other voltages in the circuit are relative to GND.
- HASL - (Hot Air Solder Leveling) – A method of coating exposed copper with solder by inserting a panel into a bath of molten solder then passing the panel rapidly past jets of hot air.
- Mouse Bites - This is an alternative method to a term we will cover a little later down this list called v-scoring. Mouse Bites are used for separating boards from panels quickly and are the result of a number of drill hits that are positioned so that they are almost touching, but leave a very thin, and thus weak spot between separate boards. This allows the boards to be broken easily after they have been manufactured.
- NET - This is a virtual representation of a wire. It is used to virtually connect each lead of a component to another part of the schematic.
- Pad - A pad is a portion of exposed copper on the surface of a PCB to which a component is soldered. Pads can feature through holes, but are often square or rectangular in shape. Pads are most common on footprints for integrated circuits, or SMD components.
- Panel - This is defined as a larger circuit board composed of many smaller boards which will be broken apart before use. Automated circuit board handling equipment frequently has trouble with smaller boards, and by aggregating several boards together at once, the process can be sped up significantly. “Panelizing” several board designs into a single board is also a way to cut down on the cost of manufacturing, but check with your manufacturer first to see if this is allowed at their facility. Some of the small run manufacturing facilities will panelize several customer’s designs together in order to reduce their cost, and to make things easier for their equipment to process.
- Paste Stencil - For PCBs that utilize surface mount parts, a thin, metal (or sometimes Mylar or plastic) stencil is created from the CAD files which features small holes in the shape of the pad’s that the components will be soldered to. This allows the manufacturing facility or the customer to easily and quickly apply solder paste to the pads of the PCB. This makes placing the SMD components by mechanical methods or by hand much easier, and ensures a consistent application of solder to each component and pad.
- Pick-and-Place Machine - If you are having your PCBs populated after they have been manufactured, then a Pick-and-Place machine will be used to populate the components to the board before being soldered in a reflow oven. This automated process ensures that the correct component is placed in proper orientation to the PCB which helps to reduce errors that are sometimes found when populating a SMD board by hand.
- Pin - This is a connection point in an IC or component. Typically ICs have as little as 3 pins to as many as 128 pins or more. Often in your designs, you will add net connections to these pins, but all of the pins are not always utilized by your circuit.
- Plane - This is a continuous block of copper on a circuit board and is usually defined by borders rather than by a path. This is sometimes also known as a “pour,” and can be used to save time in the etching process as it means that there is less copper to remove from the substrate. Often times, you will see tutorials that use a copper pour as a ground plane, which will help to reduce the number of traces on a board. Planes can also be used as heat sinks, RF, and EM shielding as well.
- PTH - The Plated Through-Hole is a design component that you are very familiar with if you have ever soldered a through hole component such as a resistor, diode, LED, etc, onto a PCB. These holes often feature an annular ring and the holes are plated through from one side to another, and can be used as vias if needed.
- Reflow - When soldering SMD components to a PCB, a process called reflowing is used. In its simplest form, the PCB is placed in an oven which is then heated to the melting point of the solder paste that was applied to the board earlier. This process has became highly refined over the years, and temperature profiles have been created for various solder paste compositions to ensure that the solder properly flows around components, and anneals as it cools to prevent cracking or so-called “cold solder joints.”
- Silkscreen - As its name implies, the letters, number, symbols and imagery on a circuit board are usually applied with a silk screening technique. This layer is almost always applied on top of the solder mask layer. While it is possible to find a PCB manufacturer that offers different colors of silk-screening, the industry standard color is white.
- Slot - A slot is defined as any hole in a PCB which is not a round hole. Slots may or may not be plated, but they almost always feature round ends due to the router bits that are used to cut them. Slots sometimes add cost to the board because they require extra cut-out time or have extra plating requirements.
- Solder Paste - As its name implies, solder paste is a spreadable material made up of a matrix of small balls of solder that are suspended in a gel medium made from flux. Solder paste is generally applied with a stencil, but can be applied with a syringe or small brush. Solder paste is almost always applied to surface mount pads on a PCB before the components are placed by a Pick-and-Place machine. During the reflow process, the solder in the paste melts along with the flux, creating clean electrical and mechanical joints between the pads and the components.
- Solder Mask - This is a layer of protective polymer material that is applied over the etched copper surface of a PCB and is designed to prevent short circuits, corrosion, and other problems. It’s most useful feature is its ability to resist molten solder from sticking to it, creating a method to easily prevent solder bridges between traces in the soldering process. This layer is sometimes referred to as “resist” layer, and is most famous for its forest green color. Many manufacturers now offer solder masking in several different colors.
- Surface Mount - This is a form of components that are designed to be placed on top of the PCB for soldering which does not require a through hole for a component’s legs to fit through. Also called SMD, this form factor has allowed components to be shrunken in size by several orders of magnitude, thus allowing more component dense designs. This is the dominant method of assembly in use today, and allows boards to be populated quickly and easily via automated processes.
- Trace - This is the heart and soul of a PCB. A trace is a continuous path of copper on a circuit board, that has been isolated from the rest of the copper by either chemically etching, or mechanical removal of the copper layer around it. Traces are used to connect components together to form circuits. Traces can vary in width, and thickness based on the current load they are designed to handle.
- VCC/Vin - This refers to the input voltage from an external source. The input voltage can be obtained from external sources such as mains power outlets, wall transformers, batteries, dedicated power supplies, or even solar panels. In general, anything that can supply power to the circuit. VCC is relative to GND. You can see an example of VCC in the below image.
- V-score - Much like the mouse bites we covered earlier, a V-Score is a partial cut through a board, allowing the board to be easily snapped along a line. A V-Score is created with a V shaped router bit.
- Via - Similar to a plated through hole, a via is a hole in a PCB that is used to pass a signal from one layer to another. When a via is covered with solder mask, it is considered a tented via and is designed to protect layer to layer signal transmission from errant solder bridges. Vias where one might want connectors and components attached are not covered in solder mask.
- Wave Soldering - This is the precursor to reflowing, and is often used when a PCB is populated with through hole components, although SMD components can be wave soldered if they are glued to the PCB. This process gets its name from the PCB being passed over a standing wave of molten solder. The PCB height is adjusted so that the components leads and the bottom of the PCB barely touch the solder wave.

Tags: printed circuit board glossary, circuit board, pcb glossary, glossary, Printed Circuit Board

Documents

migration.user — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 18:00:06 GMT

Current Revision posted to PCB Documents by migration.user on 10/1/2021 6:00:06 PM

Getting Started Designing Your First PCB

kellyhensen — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 19:59:39 GMT

Current Revision posted to PCB Documents by kellyhensen on 4/5/2017 7:59:39 PM

Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) revolutionized the way electronic devices were developed and assembled. The PCB can be traced back as far as the early 1900’s, but it was not until the 1950’s that they truly became commonplace as a defacto industry standard for electronic assemblies. Even still, the process of creating a PCB was a tedious, toxic, and dangerous task that was mostly done by hand by skilled workers. In the decades since the PCB creation process has been industrialized, automated, and made more environmentally friendly. In a modern PCB fabrication facility most of the work is now done by machines at a rate several thousand times faster than the methods used in the 1950's. In fact, the modern manufacturing process has became so efficient that it is now affordable for hobbyists, tinkerers, and small businesses to produce small run orders of their custom PCBs.

In this guide, I am going to give a high-level overview of what you need to know to design and create your first PCB. My goal is not to thoroughly cover every step of the process, but to highlight many of the aspects of the process in an effort to help first time designers understand the process well enough to get started. If you would like a more formal step by step guide, please let me know in the comments section, and I will do my best to create a series in which I design and have a PCB manufactured. With that said, let's jump right in and get started.

What is a PCB?

A PCB is defined as flat sheet of material that mechanically supports and electrically connects electronic components using conductive tracks, pads, and other features that are etched from a series of copper sheets that have been laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. This substrate can vary from a cellulose based material, fiberglass, or even flexible thermoplastics. Passive components such as capacitors, resistors, inductors, diodes, as well as more complex active devices such as transistors, and integrated circuits are generally soldered on the PCB. More modern and advanced PCBs may contain components embedded in the substrate, a common practice in military and high component density devices.

Hobbyist level PCBs are generally designed in two different layouts. The first and most simple is a single sided (one copper layer) layout which means that components and copper traces are only located on one side of the PCB. These single sided boards are quite easy for the home hobbyist to etch themselves, but lack the space needed for more complex designs. The second hobbyist-friendly design is the double sided (two copper layers) PCB. This board features a copper coating on both the top and bottom layers, and its main advantage is the ability to utilize double the surface area of a single sided PCB. This allows for more complex designs to be placed in the same space.

Single and double layered PCBs are not the only substrates available though. PCBs can have multiple layers of theoretically unlimited numbers. However, multi-layer PCB’s typically vary from three to as many as sixteen separate layers. To get the electrical signals from one layer to another, conductors on different layers, called vias, are implemented in the form of a small copper tube that is able to span from one layer to any other layer while remaining electrically insulated from the layers it does not need to contact. Multi-layer PCBs allow for much higher component density, but have the tradeoff of being much harder to design and manufacture, which also makes them more expensive. For the purpose of this article, we are going to focus on the single and two layer PCBs as that is the point at which one should begin when creating their first PCB.

Let’s take a moment to talk about the insulating substrate that we will most likely use when creating our first PCB. As I mentioned earlier, PCBs can be built on a number of different substrates, but the most common today is a material called FR-4 glass epoxy. This substrate is a special composition of fiberglass strands and epoxy that forms an exceptionally strong and well insulating foundation for the PCB. To create the full “copper clad board” either one or two layers of copper sheeting is laminated to the FR4. In multi-layer boards, multiple layers of FR4 and Copper are laminated together to create the different layers as defined in the PCB’s design.

Finally, there are two more layers to a PCB that are not mission critical for more simple designs, but have become industry standard over the last three or four decades. The solder mask layer is a thin layer of a specialized polymer that is designed to resist molten solder from sticking to it. Solder mask is applied to the PCB after the etching and drilling processes, and is applied to the entire PCB except to the traces and pads where components and wires are to be soldered. This microns thick layer helps prevent solder bridges, and shorts to what would otherwise be uninsulated copper traces. The silkscreen layer is just what its name implies. It’s usually the final layer applied to a PCB before the components are soldered on. It’s main purpose is to identify components, and provide information about the PCBs manufacture.

You may want to check out (and contribute to) our Glossary of PCB terms.

Schematic and Board Design Software

There are dozens of PCB CAD software available for you to design your first PCB with, but three stand out in terms of ease of use for first time designers. I have used each of these three programs in the past, and I have a preference for Eagle CAD, but am beginning to use CircuitMaker and KiCAD more as their community support grows larger.

Eagle

Autodesk EAGLE, (formerly CADSoft Eagle which was owned by Element14) is billed as the Easy Applicable Graphical Layout Editor that is a powerful, easy-to-use PCB design software for every engineer! For more than 25 years, EAGLE has been the PCB design tool of choice for hundreds of thousands of electronic design engineers and developers worldwide. Many enthusiast have used eagle over the years due to its large community support and it’s limited but, free hobbyist license. Eagle also has a monthly and yearly subscription plan set up at two different pricing tiers for those looking for a more feature rich version of the software. For the purpose of this article, the focus will be on the free version.

As per the Autodesk Eagle website, the free version includes the following features:

- - - Schematic Editor
    - Layout Editor
    - 2 Signal Layers
    - Autorouter
    - 80mm2 Routing Area
    - 2 Schematic Sheets
    - Non-Commercial

Eagle has a lot of support from both the amateur and professional communities, with literally hundreds, if not thousands of tutorials on how to use it all over the internet. A simple search on YouTube will yield dozens of pages of video tutorials in many different languages. Additionally, there are hundreds of user created component libraries for just about any electronic component you will find on the market, and a ton of support for legacy new old stock that you might find on Ebay, at an estate sale, or in a surplus store. As with everything digital, there are a few tradeoffs when using the free version. The biggest issue is the 80mm x 80mm routing area limit. This means that your board design can not exceed those dimensions. Another issue for some is that boards designed in the free version of Eagle are limited to non-commercial use only. If you only plan on creating your design for personal use, or to give away to friends, then this is not an issue for you, but if you plan on selling even one of your boards you can not use Eagle to create the schematic, board layout, or the CAM files needed to manufacture the boards.

Eagle was the first PCB CAD software that I used, and as such, it became my go-to program to use when designing new PCBs. I have spent a lot of time in Eagle, and know the program quite well, but as I progressed in my knowledge of the craft and my designs grew more complex while my budgets stayed the same, I began looking into into the next PCB CAD program on the list.

KiCAD

KiCAD is the only fully open source PCB CAD program that I will cover in this article, not because others do not exist, but because it is the only one I have first hand experience with. Albeit that experience is a bit limited, I understand the program enough to briefly talk about its highs and lows. The software’s website says that “KiCad is an open source software suite for Electronic Design Automation (EDA). The program handles Schematic Capture, and PCB Layout with Gerber output. The suite runs on Windows, Linux and OS X and is licensed under GNU GPL v3."

One of the major benefits to using KiCAD is that it is a fully functional PCB design and layout software that is 100% open source, and is backed by many of the entities that back the open source software and hardware movements. Most notably CERN, The University of Grenoble and GIPSA-lab, The Raspberry Pi Foundation, and Arduino. The software was originally created in 1992 by Jean-Pierre Charras, but is now actively developed by its own development team. Furthermore, the community based support for KiCAD is growing at a very fast pace, and in the last few years it has became a formidable competitor to Eagle. Additionally, KiCad is free software. KiCad is made available under the GNU General Public License(GPL) version 3 or greater.

- The KiCad suite has five main parts:
  - - KiCad - the project manager.
    - Eeschema - the schematic capture editor.
    - Pcbnew - the PCB layout program including a 3D viewer.
    - GerbView - the Gerber viewer.
    - Bitmap2Component - tool to convert images to footprints for PCB artwork.

Unlike the free version of Eagle, you are not limited in board size, nor are you bound to non-commercial designs only. KiCAD also features a 3D viewer that allows you to view your PCB, unpopulated, and populated, in 3D so that you can accurately check clearances, layout, and footprint issues. Furthermore, you can adjust component footprints on the fly, and other useful features like the GerbView and Bitmap2Component features make the QA and design portions of your design process much easier.

CircuitMaker

CircuitMaker is Altium’s foray into the free PCB CAD world, and I honestly have to say that they knocked it out of the park. Its website says that CircuitMaker was designed “For turning great ideas into real products, you need design tools that won’t limit your imagination or hold you back. CircuitMaker has all the power you need to design high quality schematics and Printed Circuit Boards, with no artificial limits on layer counts or board area. Best of all it’s free… Typically, free EDA software is poorly developed, or has restrictions on design size that render it useless for any real project. Not CircuitMaker - you get the full power of 16 signal + 16 plane layers, and no restrictions to the PCB dimensions. You can even make money with your designs, because it is nit restricted to“non-commercial” development only!”

CircuitMaker is the newest player on the field, at least as far as this article is concerned, and it boasts a wide array of interesting and useful features that have raised the bar in terms of what users might expect in a free PCB design program. The software is based on Altium Designer’s technology, but at a more hobbyist friendly level. I will admit that this is the design program that I have used the least, but it is quickly growing on me thanks to some of its features such as the ability to easily collaborate on a project with other makers thanks to its Share and Collaborate feature. One other feature I would like to highlight is the program’s native 3D™ technology that allows you to press a hotkey at any point in the board design process and view the board and components rendered in realtime 3D. This allows you to see any component clearance violations and you’ll even know what the overlap distances are, so you can get your designs right - and fit to the box - the first time.

Other standout features of CircuitMaker are:

- - - A massive, and rich component library
    - Push-N-Shove Routing
    - Topological Autorouter
    - Multisheet Schematic Editor
    - A very powerful DRC/DFM Processor
    - The ability to import from virtually every other popular PCB design program.

Designing your PCB

When you design your first PCB there will be several steps that you will need to take before you ship the design files off to be manufactured. I have covered those steps briefly below. Each of the programs listed above have their own project management feature, and learning how to properly use that feature will make the steps below much easier, and the whole process will feel much more streamlined.

Create The Schematic:

If you are reading this article, then I am going to assume that you know what a schematic is. If you don’t, then please stop reading right here and perform a few searches before continuing on. If you are like me, you have sketched out your circuit design onto a piece of paper. Even if this is the most basic concept of your design, it will still help to quickly sketch things out before moving on to building the schematic in the software. If I am unsure of a design, I will often search for free, open source design files that feature similar circuitry, or portions of a circuit that I can copy out into my own design. Using this method I have been able to teach myself how to design simple circuits like a 555-timer flasher, all the way up to complex hats for the Raspberry Pi.

As I mentioned earlier, when designing your schematic, you will need to pay special care to ensure that the footprint of the component you use in the schematic exactly matches the footprint of the component that will be soldered to the PCB. Depending on the popularity of the exact component you you will be populating the PCB with, you may have to take matters into your own hands and create the correct footprint yourself. If this ends up being the case, don't worry too much about it. There are really great tutorials on YouTube that walk you through the component creation process for just about every popular PCB CAD program on the market.

When creating the schematic in any of the three programs mentioned above, remember to double check that everything is connected where it needs to be with a NET. This is how the program’s auto routing, DRC, and ERC features know what is connected where. I generally like to go over my schematic two or three times, counting each net, and making sure that everything is connected and accounted for before moving on to the board layout.

Laying out the PCB

Mounting Holes and Other Routed Features

If your design features mounting holes, v-scores, mouse bites, or fingers, make sure you place them on the board first. This would also be a good time to read over any documentation that the fab house that will manufacture your boards provides. Some facilities have guidelines you will need to follow that will govern the sizes of drilled holes, clearance requirements for v-scores, and even rules that govern finger placements. Placing these features at the beginning of your design will also help eliminate any issues that might arise when placing component footprints into the design.

Component Footprints

Every PCB design program is different when it comes to footprint assignment. Some programs force you to select a package or “footprint” when choosing schematic components, others let you assign a footprint to a specific schematic symbol in your design. Either way works fine, but it is important to remember that the footprint you use must match the physical component you will be populating the PCB with. An incorrect footprint will almost always result in wasted time and money.

If you are doing a small run of boards, this is not that big of a deal, as you can either remake the boards, or order the same component with the correct footprint. On larger runs, it will be up in the air on which solution is the better option based on which component does not fit. If it’s a $0.01 resistor, then it's not a big deal, but if it is an $8 IC, it could be disastrous.

All three of the programs listed above feature the ability to create, edit, and import footprints, but this process is tedious, and I find it best to try and find off-the-shelf components that match existing footprints. With that said, on the last PCB I created, I did have to create footprints for 3 different components, and it only set me back a few hours to get those components created.

Trace Width vs Amperage?

One often overlooked step in the PCB design process by newcomers is selecting the proper trace width for the load it is intended to handle. Traces for simple 3.3V and 5V logic signals can be tiny, but the trace for high voltage connectivity from something like a 120V 10A relay will need to be much larger to ensure they can handle that type of load without melting and destroying the PCB.

This is not an area I am an expert on, so I will have to refer any questions on this topic to the internet or electrical engineering text books. There are several handy calculators online that will help you figure out proper trace width. There are also methods to boost a trace’s power capacity such as leaving the trace in question exposed from the solder mask, and giving it a liberal coating of solder in the wave soldering process. I am not sure if this method is considered a best practice or not, but I have seen it used in amateur and professional PCBs.

Routing The Traces

This is another point in the design process where you should read the documentation provided by the fab house that will be manufacturing your PCB. Every manufacturer is different, and some of the cheaper houses have restrictions on how small your traces can be, as well as how small the clearances can be between traces.

You can choose to hand route each trace or use the program’s auto routing feature. If my design is small enough, I prefer to route the traces by hand, but this can become highly time consuming if your design is complex. One thing to note is that sometimes the Auto Router will miss routing a trace or two, and you should always double check that every net from the schematic has been properly routed on the board design. Each program has various settings you can change that govern the amount of vias and layer changes that will be used to route each trace. This is important as some fab houses will charge extra if the number of vias in a design crosses a predetermined threshold.

The Silkscreen Layer

Once the components have been placed, and all of the traces properly routed, you should take the time to adjust labels and rename anything that needs renaming on the silkscreen layer. This is also the time to add logos, website addresses, and the board's name, revision number, and date this revision was created. Personally, I like to add most of the identifying information to the copper layer, but that is a little more advanced than I want to get with this guide. If you would like to have that info etched into a copper pour, there are tutorials that can easily be found with a simple search.

ERC & DRC

Think of the Electrical Rules Check (ERC) and Design Rules Check (DRC) as the first step in your Q&A process. The ERC will check your board design for unrouted traces, VCC and GND shorts, and several other electrical rules. Unfortunately, if your schematic is missing net connections, the ERC cannot alert you of unrouted connections. It is up to you to double and triple check that your schematic is correct before moving forward.

The DRC will run a series of test based on the requirements of the manufacturer who will be producing your boards. You will need to check with the manufacturer for their specific DRC parameters, and most will be able to provide you with a DRC file for the specific CAD program you are using. Ensuring that the DRC returns no errors is very important, and not running a properly configured DRC could result in your design being rejected by the manufacturer.

Check 3D Rendering

Step two in the Q&A process is to utilize your design software’s 3D rendering feature to check for component clearance issues and that the silkscreen layer is correct and is free of obstructions that component packages might have caused. This is also a good time to take a screenshot of the render so that you can brag to your friends about how cool your new PCB is going to look. I find it best to look at both the naked board, and the populated board in the 3D view as it gives me a better sense of confidence that my design is sound and ready for manufacturing.

Print 1:1 Scale and Check That Footprints Match Physical Components

The final Q&A process that I recommend is to print your board layout at a 1:1 scale, and physically place the various components onto it that will be placed at the factory. This step does require you to have a full set of components on hand, but I find that this process is vital in ensuring that everything fits properly. It’s just another layer that adds additional peace of mind before shipping your design files off to be manufactured.

Having your PCB manufactured

The first thing you will need to do before you can ship your design off to be manufactured is to generate a Gerber file that contains all of the necessary design files for the fab house to use in the PCBs production. This file is a universal file that is generated in the CAD program you used to design your PCB. Each program has its own way of generating this file, so be sure to read the program's instructions, or search for the proper way to generate the file with the program you are using.

Once you have the design file created, I am going to assume that you have a fab house picked out. This is something you should have done before running the DRC earlier. You will then need to visit the fab house’s website and select the number of boards, the PCB material and thickness, solder mask color, silk screen color, and the type of coating you would like applied to the copper traces. The most common coating is called HASL and is simply a method used to coat the copper traces in a thin layer of solder that will prevent them from oxidizing and compromising their integrity. If you have fingers on an edge connector, you will want to specify in the notes that these copper pads do not get a HASL coating, unless required by the design.

Once you have all of the various options for your PCB selected, all that is left is to finish up the order, and wait for your PCBs to arrive. This could take anywhere from days, to weeks, or even months depending on the fab house you select. Some of these manufacturers offer expedited services for an additional fee, and this is something you should consider when choosing who will manufacture your PCBs.

One other factor to consider is how many PCBs you will be having made. Some fab houses have a minimum of 100 PCBs that must be ordered, while others will accept orders for as few as five boards. I have seen some places that will manufacture a single PCB, but you will have to wait on a panel to be filled up with other peoples designs before the manufacturing process will begin. These single board services are notorious for taking weeks to months to deliver the single board, so consider spending the extra money if you need your board fast.

Finally, most fab houses will include an electrical signal check on the PCB at various test points for free, but a thorough electrical signal check of all of the traces will cost extra. If you are confident in your design, and you are just ordering a few PCBs, the free testing should suffice, but if you are having more than 10 boards made, or are planning on selling the PCBs you should consider paying for the more thorough check. You could also perform this test yourself by building a testing jig with pogo pins.

Having your PCB Populated

If you like to solder, or have a reflow oven, pick-and-place machine, and patience, you can populate your boards yourself. For small runs, self assembly of the boards is not that big of a deal, even if you have to hand solder 603 sized resistors. I have personally hand soldered a run of 175 PCBs that I built for a company I used to own, and I can honestly tell you that it was most definitely not worth my time, or the stress that it induced into my life. It took me six days of straight soldering from 8am to 7pm to get the batch finished, tested, and packaged.

An alternative to building each of your PCBs by hand is to have them populated by the fab house who etches your PCBs. Not all PCB manufacturers offer this, but most that accept low volume runs also offer assembly services. From my experience, it does not cost much more to have the PCB populated unless you tack on additional steps in the process such as burning a program to the MCU, or running 100% test on the finished boards. The 175 board run I mentioned earlier would have cost me less than $5 extra per board to have the components populated at the factory. When you do the math on that small extra cost versus the hours upon hours I spent hand soldering, I lost way more money than I would have by just having the board populated at the factory. It is important to remember that if you chose to have your PCB populated at a factory, you will need to provide them with a bill of materials, and you might even have to ship them the components that your board requires.

Almost every PCB I have had manufactured since has also been populated at the factory. I almost never opt for the programming option, as it is easy enough to connect a cable myself and program 100 boards while I work on other things. Ultimately this step is entirely up to you and if your budget can accommodate this process. I would highly advise that you have your boards populated at the factory if you have SMD components in the design, or if your run is larger than 10 boards.

One final piece of advice that I can offer is to keep an unpopulated copy of your board for future reference. I keep a “master copy” of all of the PCBs I have created in a filing cabinet, each labeled and numbered along with a print out of the schematic, board design, and 3D rendering. This helps me quickly find something if I need to reference a design, or troubleshoot something.

More Resources

Element14 offers unparalleled resources for manufacturing your own PCBs, including a community section, a download center for some of the most popular PCB CAD programs, and a couple of fab house partners that will work with you to get your PCBs manufactured quickly and hassle free. Head over to the links below to learn more. I have also listed a few resources from around the web.

Tags: eda, manufacturing services, altium, eagle, autodesk eagle, kicad, element14 pcb, cadsoft eagle, altium circuitmaker, embedded design, pcb, circuitmaker, kicad eda, pcb fabrication, circuitboard, printed circuitboard, premier farnell pcb, embedded hardware, element14 eagle, assembly services, cadsoft, altium circuitstudio, autodesk, pcb assembly services, Printed Circuit Board

PCB Documents

Comprehensive PCB Terminology: Your Ultimate Guide to Printed Circuit Board Lingo

Annular Ring

BOM (Bill of Materials)

Copper Pour

Component Placement

DIP (Dual In-line Package)

Drill Hit

DRC - Design Rule Check

ERC - Electrical Rule Check

ESD (Electrostatic Discharge)

ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance)

Fab House - Fabrication House

Finger

Footprints

Gerber File

GND - Ground

HASL - Hot Air Solder Leveling

IPC Standards

JTAG (Joint Test Action Group)

Mouse Bites

Net

Pad

Panel

Paste Stencil

Pick-and-Place Machine

Pin

Plane

PTH - Plated Through-Hole

Reflow

Silkscreen

Slot

Solder Paste

Solder Mask

Surface Mount (SMD - Surface Mount Device)

Trace

VCC/Vin:

V-score:

Wave Soldering

PCB Glossary

Terminology

PCB Assembly Terms

PCB Assembly Terms

PCB Assembly Terms

PCB Assembly Terms

PCB Glossary

Terminology

Documents

Getting Started Designing Your First PCB

What is a PCB?

Schematic and Board Design Software

Eagle

KiCAD

CircuitMaker

Designing your PCB

Create The Schematic:

Laying out the PCB

Mounting Holes and Other Routed Features

Component Footprints

Trace Width vs Amperage?

Routing The Traces

The Silkscreen Layer

ERC & DRC

Check 3D Rendering

Print 1:1 Scale and Check That Footprints Match Physical Components

Having your PCB manufactured

Having your PCB Populated

More Resources