PCB Train Blog

New Site Launch & iPad Mini Prize Draw

Philip King — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 07:29:11 +0000

We are very excited to have launched our all new website. Here at PCB Train we don’t believe in half measures so we’ve gone all out for our new design. We have worked closely with our web agency to not only completely rebrand PCB Train but also to completely overhaul the customer experience.

Our site is still packed to the brim with fantastic PCB and electronic manufacture content but there is now also an easy to use ordering system that follows you around; quick and simple when you need to and out of your way when you don’t. We think our customers will love it, but don’t take our word for it, give it a go! Why not head over to Facebook or Twitter and let us know what you think?

iPad Mini Prize Draw

To celebrate the launch of our new site and as a thank you to our friends and followers we are giving away an iPad mini through our social networks. All you need to do is ‘like’ us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and enter your email address to be in with a chance.

The competition closes at midnight on 20th June 2013. What are you waiting for?

The Future of Surface Mount Technology

Philip King — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:39:19 +0000

Every year brings a new crop of digital electronic devices with greater capabilities. There’s a rule-of-thumb called Moore’s Law that says the number of transistors in an integrated circuit will double every 18 months while the cost to produce it remains the same. It wasn’t long ago that a personal digital assistant with an 8 megabyte memory was a hot ticket device, yet today having gigabytes of memory is commonplace.

Miniaturization was crucial during the space race of the mid-twentieth century. The Soviets possessed more powerful rockets. In order to equal their capabilities, the payloads of American rockets had to be smaller and lighter.

As miniaturization increased the density of integrated circuit chips, component density increased on circuit boards. Surface mount components are soldered using automated techniques so there’s no need to maintain generous spacing between them. Technicians have little room for error when performing rework, reflowing solder joints, or replacing components. The space between component leads may be less than 0.010 inches or 0.254 millimetres. The tiny pads on the circuit boards are easily overheated and pulled up even with good soldering technique.

Newer technologies will allow for even greater component density. Right now, most boards have densities in the 10-20% range, but the increasing use of flip chip connections inside integrated circuits will permit density to climb to about 80%. Integrated circuits have tiny internal wires connecting the active devices to larger external leads, but in flip chip technology, the active device is mounted upside down. This allows the use of the bottom of the chip for connections to the circuit board. A modern flash memory chip may have nearly 100 leads, but a similar size flip chip can have over 1000. These connections are called ball grid arrays (BGA) because there are tiny bumps of solder on the underside of the IC. When heated in an oven or under a hot air soldering station, the balls melt to form electrical connections.

The most common transistors found in ICs are MOSFETS which measure from 50-100 nm. Carbon nanotubes, which can be metals or semiconductors depending on their composition, are 2 nm across. CNTFETs could make even greater circuit densities possible, and some of their other properties, like higher currents and lower losses, offer tremendous promise.

Environmental concerns are another key consideration in manufacturing as lead solder is slowly phased out. Conductive adhesives may be a substitute as are lead-free solders, but the long term reliability of these materials is not yet known. For some critical applications in medicine, the military, or aerospace, conventional lead solder may be a better choice for now, but conductive adhesives may be the future when it comes to flip chip technology.

Circuit boards can be manufactured with layers containing passive components like resistors, capacitors, and inductors. Other layers can contain optical circuits for fiber optics, microwave and RF circuits, and even the power supply. Current multi-layer board technology could make this possible very quickly, and is one key aspect of increasing component density. As a result, the differences between components and circuit board may become blurred.

The Role of CAD in Electronic Design and Manufacture

Philip King — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:37:07 +0000

Computer Aided Design (CAD) refers to any software that aids developers in the creation of their product. ECAD (Electronic Computer Aided Design) and EDA (Electronic Design Automation) refer specifically to CAD software designed for electronics. In the electrical engineering field, CAD has become pivotal to the ongoing process of manufacturing complex electronics like printed circuit boards (PCBs) and microprocessors that are designed down to the subatomic level. The software provides a large number of tools and functionality that allow electronics companies to make the products that drive the age of information technology.

The Role of ECAD

Until an electronic device goes to the production line, ECAD is the most important tool of the design process. It performs the primary tasks of constructing electrical schematics, performing simulations, and creating physical blueprints for electronic devices ranging from the latest microprocessor to powerful graphic processing units. It is the primary reason that electronics have advanced from processors with just over 2000 transistors to ones with billions packed onto them.

ECAD Functionality

The available functionality of ECAD software can be summed up as the design and testing of complex electronics schematics on both the physical and logical level. The schematics for both aspects are generated are stored in digital format with frequent backups, making it easier to modify and distribute.

On the electrical side, ECAD programs typically come with the ability to design the electronics schematics from the ground up and eventually run simulations to determine how the hardware will respond when an electronic input is given. This is done by using the software language to replicate the logical functions that electronics goes through. For a simple example, if an AND logic gate is shown on the schematic, the simulation would take all the inputs into the gate and perform the same process at the application level. The program would do this for all possible inputs in order to quickly and automatically test the schematic. Many of the programs also offer the ability to create “cells” that act similarly to logic gates or solid-state chips.

Every electrical component has a physical manifestation, and complete ECAD software manages this aspect as thoroughly as it cares for the logic process. The software allows the engineers to place the physical components represented in the electrical diagram onto a model of its physical form. Any discrepancies, such as overlapping parts or a lack of room, are noted and can then be corrected well before the manufacturing process.

ECAD Programs

There are a number of both open source and commercial options available for EDA software. On the commercial side, the top options include programs such as: Zuken’s CADSTAR, Mentor Graphics’ collection of programs, and Synopsis Design Compiler. The most popular open source tool is gEDA, developed for Linux due to the low availability of quality open source EDA tools.

The Future of ECAD

With the ongoing trends towards solid-state devices and placing more complicated systems on a single electronic component, the demand for powerful ECAD software will continue to rise. More open source options are appearing, meaning that both companies and scientists will have the tools they need to design electronics to control the giant robots and flying cars of the future.

Merry Christmas 2012 from PCB Train

PCBTeam — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:54:30 +0000

It’s been a busy year at PCB Train. We’ve worked with whole host of existing clients and a many new ones creating some great relationships along the way.

Earlier in the year we launched our Facebook and Twitter pages and have already started building a great community there. We gave away an Amazon Kindle Touch earlier a few months back and have just conducted a poll on our Facebook to find out the most popular gadget. The iPad won and we gave away a brand new shiny iPad to a random participant.

John Chapman with his new iPad!

Our factory will be closed between Monday 24th December and Tuesday 1st January and today is our last production and shipping day.

We would like to wish all of our past, present and future customers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Complex PCB Design

PCBTeam — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:57:11 +0000

Printed circuit boards or PCBs are the foundation of modern electronics. They do more than simply provide electrical connections between components. Some incorporate an internal ground plane for signal isolation, preventing capacitive coupling between adjacent conductors. The ground plane also helps to dissipate heat. Printed circuit boards may be rigid or flexible, with the flexible versions found in many automobiles and digital cameras.

Early electronics used point to point wiring that had to be installed by a skilled soldering technician, but the concept of a printed circuit began with Thomas Edison. He experimented with paper as a substrate, however the idea never went to production.

Early printed circuit boards were single-sided. The conductors were printed on one side while components were mounted on the opposite one. Component leads went through holes in the board and were soldered to the conductors. Double sided boards were slightly more complex, with conductors printed on both sides and connected with plated-through holes called vias.

Multi-layer boards are the current standard in electronics, though the older single and double-sided versions are still in use for simple circuitry. A multi-layer board is a sandwich comprised of thin, stacked printed circuits with vias connecting the various layers. Design complexity requires the use of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) also known as Electronic Computer Assisted Design (ECAD). Older designs were often drawn by hand, but the level of complexity in modern electronic requires computer assistance. Another benefit of this approach is the capability to test circuits in a virtual environment before any prototypes are built.

Components on multi-layer boards may be surface mounted or through-hole types. It’s not unusual to find both on a single board. Parts may be soldered into the board with hot air, ovens, or wave soldering techniques, all of them performed by automated machinery. When subsequent testing reveals a defect, the board is routed to a soldering technician for repair.

Due to environmental concerns, traditional tin-lead solder is being slowly replaced by lead-free solder composed of tin and silver. This is rapidly overtaking consumer electronics, but the reliability and longevity of lead-free solder is not yet known for use in critical medical, aerospace, and military applications.

Conductive epoxy is another lead-free connective material that may replace solder. It includes silver with a conventional epoxy and offers the advantage of room temperature or low temperature oven curing.

The theoretical limit for component miniaturization is determined by the wavelength of the light used to etch the circuits. The masks must include conductors at least one wavelength wide so the etching process will work. Printed circuit boards face the same limits, and as their density and complexity increase, new manufacturing and repair techniques will require advanced automation rather than human intervention.

The Basics of PCB Manufacture

PCBTeam — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:03:31 +0000

Printed circuit boards perform two functions. They provide mechanical support for electronic devices and connect all the devices through conductive traces. Today, they are nearly universal in electronic devices. It wasn’t always so. Early electronics were hand-soldered by skilled technicians. Some industrial devices utilized wire wrap, a technique that involved wrapping a solid wire around a vertical post with the assistance of a hand tool or power wire wrapping tool. This is still widely used for prototypes. A few devices used stitch-wiring, with solid wires tack-welded to pads on a printed circuit board. Fortunately this method was short-lived as performing repairs or troubleshooting was difficult.

Printed circuit boards (PCB), also called printed wiring boards, or circuit card assemblies, replaced the other processes because they’re less costly to manufacture, and they permit the automated assembly of electronic circuits. They range from simple, “home-brewed” boards to complex, multi-layer versions that require computer aided design and precision assembly methods.

Thomas Edison experimented with conductive traces on linen paper in 1904. Other researchers performed similar experiments in the 1920s and 1930s, some of them resulting in patents. The advent of the Second World War brought a need for mass-produced PCBs for proximity fuses in artillery shells. The process used a ceramic plate with metal traces screen printed onto its surface. Production was kept secret until after the war when the process was offered for commercial use.

The underlying board material is called the substrate. A rigid board may be composed of phenolic, a kind of resin impregnated paper, fiberglass, low-loss plastics for high power radio circuits, or ceramic. Flexible PCBs are available for applications that require bending or the ability to fit into a confined space.

Boards fall into three broad types: single-sided, double-sided, and multi-layer. Single and double-sided have conductive traces on their outer surfaces and use through-holes to mount parts. Multi-layer boards are constructed like a sandwich, with several layers of conductors connected by plated “vias”. Multi-layer construction is often less costly because it is entirely automated.

PCB layout uses silkscreen or photographic printing methods to apply the “artwork” to the substrate. The subtractive process starts with a copper plated board, masks the traces, and etches the remaining copper away. The additive method uses the artwork as a pattern for applying chemicals that will allow copper to bond to the substrate.

PCB manufacture requires careful design to prevent capacitive coupling between traces. Thermal effects can cause expansion and contraction at different rates, leading to intermittent circuits.

The Samsung Vs. Apple Court Case

PCBTeam — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 11:53:54 +0000

The two biggest smartphone manufacturers currently at war with a patent battle taking place at a Californian court, which is the biggest trial of its kind as the two technology firms are accusing each other of intellectual property infringement.

Samsung and Apple are the two companies in question and are responsible for more than half of all smartphones sold across the world. There have been a number of copyright and design infringements thrown back and forth between the two companies with Apple accusing Samsung of copying their design for the body of the original iPhone and also user interaction elements. They are using the change in designs from Samsung’s 2006 phones to their 2010 range as clear proof of copying the iPhone design after its 2007 launch.

Samsung’s argument is that there is a difference between being inspired by a product and working to improve on it, which is competition compared to just copying a design. They have also been in the mobile communication market for decades so will argue that Apple is using its years of research without actually paying for it.

The court proceedings began with an explanation of the difference between a design patent and a utility patent. A design patent relates to how something looks, such as the layout of the interface and the casing of the phone whilst a utility patent covers how it works so is focussed on the processors and circuit boards on the inside that make the phone work. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this as it could have dramatic ramifications for the smartphone market.

Flexible Circuit Boards in the Nintendo 3DS

PCBTeam — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:02:32 +0000

The Nintendo 3DS has recently seen a hardware revision which has seen the gaming console upgraded in size to the Nintendo 3DS XL. We’ve talked about different types of video games before with regards to the circuits inside so when we stumbled across this image from a recent Nintendo Q&A session on their website, we had to share it.

Nintendo gathered many of the people involved in the development of the Nintendo 3DS to discuss the process and give an insight into the decisions made during its design. Before the casing of the console was even designed, the team simply connected two of the larger LCD screens to the 3DS circuit boards to ensure the screen displayed correctly. The LCD was determined by a number of factors including size, backlight and cost.

The larger screens provided other additional issues such as the size of the framing area of the console around the screen. The size of this area affected the position of the speakers which had to be created to fit the new frame size. With regards to the insides of the console, the developers used every trick they could to reduce the size of components, shaving off 0.1mm wherever possible to fit it everything.

One of the problem solving ideas they incorporated was the use of flexible printed circuits (FPCs) within the hinges to connect the upper and lower screens. There are actually three FPCs in there which connect the various separate electrical circuit boards throughout the two sections of the handheld.

Amazon Kindle Touch Giveaway

PCBTeam — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 08:47:05 +0000

We are pleased to announce that we are going to be giving away an Amazon Kindle Touch to one lucky Facebook or Twitter follower.

To enter on Facebook all you need to do is visit our page, ‘like’ us and follow the instructions. To enter on Twitter you can visit this page and follow the instructions.

Since its release in 2007, the Kindle has gone through a number of iterations culminating in the first touch enabled model. The Kindle Touch combines the ease of use of tablet computers such as the iPad with the portability, low cost and e-ink screen of the previous Kindle models.

The lucky winner will be able to carry around thousands of books in one small, light package and subscribe to have newspapers, magazines and journals delivered automatically to the device.

Good luck to all who enter and stay tuned for more great promotions in the future!

Apple Launches “Most Unrepairable Laptop Ever”

PCBTeam — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:59:21 +0000

At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple this week released the new 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display. The new laptop bridges the gap between the existing MacBook Pro line and the MacBook Air line of ultra portables.

The chassis has become significantly thinner at the expense of losing the optical drive and despite the addition of a larger battery the unit is a fair bit lighter than the standard MacBook Pro. In terms of specifications the base model comes with a quad core i7 processor clocked at 2.3GHz which is configurable up to 2.7Ghz. 8GB memory comes as standard and the Pro now comes with solid state storage from 256 to 768GB of space.

USB 3 has finally been added to the Mac line and the laptop also comes with two thunderbolt ports, SD card reader and for the first time in a Mac portable, an HDMI port. The big selling point of this laptop though is of course that very impressive “Retina” display. With a resolution 2880 x 1800 and 220PPI it is by a long way the best screen available right now. All of those pixels are powered by integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics and an NVIDIA Geforce GT 650M GPU when required.

With specs like that and a starting price point of £1799 the new MacBook Pro is definitely targeted at the professional market, specifically photographers and video editors who can take full advantage of the incredible display. The initial stock sold out within hours and there’s now a 3-4 week wait if you want to get your hands on one.

Few disagree that this is probably the best laptop available on the market right now but Apple has as always managed to annoy at least a few people. As usual the guys at iFixit got their hands on one of these as soon as they could and took it apart to get a close up look of the insides. To their annoyance and the annoyance of many others around the world they discovered that the laptop is basically impossible to upgrade or repair.

The screen construction has been done in such a way that it would be very difficult to replace just the panel, the battery packs have been glued in place instead of using screws and the flash storage and even the ram have been soldered to the logic board. This is basically a first in the electronic manufacture of laptop computers and has led to the new MacBook Pro being dubbed as “the most unrepairable laptop ever”.

It’s unlikely that these minor annoyances will particularly effect many people though and the machine will likely go on to sell very well with a 13″ model expected to come later in the year.