When designing a PCB, one of the critical decisions you’ll face is whether to use plated or unplated mounting holes. These holes are essential for securing the PCB to an enclosure or package, but the choice between plated and unplated holes depends on your design requirements, grounding needs, and mechanical considerations. Let’s explore the differences, advantages, and best practices for each type.
With the increasing global water scarcity, especially in large-scale agricultural planting areas, traditional irrigation methods face issues such as water waste, cumbersome manual operations, and imprecise irrigation control. To address these pain points, we have helped our customers develop a wireless smart irrigation controller PCBA.
These PCB tolerances ensure that PCB circuit boards are produced precisely and can function as intended. Manufacturers adhere to specific in-house tolerance guidelines, based on international standards like IPC-A-600 Class 2, to maintain quality throughout the production process.
Electronics are becoming faster, smaller, and used in more demanding environments. Miniaturized ICs and SMDs operate at higher frequencies and require more power. Increased current demands cause voltage drops across resistive elements, generating heat and leading to temperature rises and hotspots. Over half of electronic component failures now stem from heat-related stress.
Chip-Scale Package (CSP) is a type of integrated circuit packaging technology. The size of the package is up to 1.2 times the size of the actual die, with only a single-die and a direct surface mountable package. First originating in the 1990s, it was developed as a response to the demand for smaller and more efficient packages.
Take a look at any type of multiconductor serial bus that uses single ended traces. You’ll probably see some resistors sitting around the bus being connected to driver pins and power or ground. The use of these resistors is intentional with the purpose being to set the signal level and reflection control on the bus. The other reason is placement as a pull-up resistor, where a line in the bus is pulled up to the signal power supply level.
PCB edge plating is a specialized process that involves applying a metal coating to the exposed copper connections at the edge of a printed circuit board (PCB). This technique, also known as side plating, battlement, or metallized edge plating, enhances electrical connectivity, structural rigidity, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding.
A ball grid array (BGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging that features an array of small solder balls on the underside, which serve as electrical connections to the printed circuit board (PCB). Unlike dual in-line or flat packages, ball grid arrays offer the advantage of accommodating a greater number of interconnection pins, made possible by utilizing the entire bottom surface of the device for connections instead of only relying on the perimeter
Manual soldering, while not as precise as automated assembly processes like reflow soldering, is still widely used in various applications. However, it is prone to specific defects that can affect the quality and reliability of the final product. Understanding these common manual PCB soldering defects is crucial for maintaining high product quality and yield
a PCB will operate in a high ambient temperature environment, and the board needs to remove heat from components to prevent even higher temperatures from being reached in the system. Active cooling measures are important for aiding heat flow, but not all products can accommodate active cooling. Instead, designs can rely on passive cooling that relies on choosing the right PCB materials.