What does PCB stand for in electronics 2020 | Infographics

What's a PCB?

printed circuit board has become the most frequent name but may also be called"printed wiring boards" or"printed wiring cards". Before the arrival of the PCB circuits were constructed through a laborious process of point to point wiring. So this is how PCB stands in electronis. This led to frequent failures in wire junctions and short-circuits when wire insulation began to age and crack.

 considerable progress has been the evolution of cable wrap , by which a little gauge wire is wrapped around a pole at each connection point, creating a gastight connection that's highly durable and readily changeable.

As electronic equipment transferred out of vacuum tubes and tubes to integrated circuits, the exact cost and size of all electronics started to diminish. Electronics became prevalent in consumer goods, and also the pressure to decrease the dimensions and manufacturing costs of electronics drove manufacturers to start looking for better solutions. So came to be the PCB.

PCB can be an acronym for printed circuit board. It's a plank that's pads and lines which join various issues together. In the graphic , you can find hints that connect the many components and connectors into one another. A PCB allows power and signals to be routed between physical devices. Solder may be your metal which makes the electric connections between the surface of the PCB and the electronic components. Being alloy, solder also serves as a strong mechanical glue.

FR 4
The base material, or substrate, is usually fiberglass. Historicallythe most usual designation with this fiberglass is"FR4". This solid core provides the PCB its own rigidity and thickness. Additionally, there are elastic PCBs built on elastic high-temperature plastic (Kapton or the equivalent).

You will find lots of different thickness PCBs; probably the most common thickness for SparkFun services and products is 1.6mm (0.063"). A number of our products- lily pad planks and Arudino Pro Micro planks - work with a 0.8mm thick plank.

Cheaper PCBs along with perf boards (shown previously ) is likely to soon be made from other materials such as epoxies or phenolics which lack the durability of FR4 but are not as expensive. You may know that you're working together with this specific kind of PCB when you solder to it - they will have a very distictive awful smell. These sorts of substrates will also be typically found in non invasive consumer electronics. Phenolics have a low thermal decomposition temperature that causes them to de-laminate smoke, smoke and char when the soldering iron has been held too long over the board.

Copper
The second layer is a thin aluminum foil, that is laminated to the board with heat and adhesive. On average, double sided PCBs, copper can be placed on either side of their substrate. In less expensive electronics that the PCB might have aluminum on only one side. When we refer to a double-sided or 2-layer plank we are referring to the number of copper layers (2) inside our lasagna. This is often as few as 1 coating or as many as 16 layers or longer.

The vast bulk of PCBs possess 1 oz of copper per square foot but a few PCBs that handle very high power may use 2 or 3 ounce copper. Each oz per square translates to roughly 35 micrometers or 1.4 thousandths of a inch of thickness of copper.

Soldermask
The coating on top of the aluminum foil is called the soldermask layer. This coating provides the PCB its green (or, at SparkFun, reddish ) color. It is piled on the aluminum coating to insulate the aluminum traces from casual contact with other metal, solder, or conductive bits. This coating helps the user to solder into the correct places and prevent solder jumpers.

In the case below, the green solder mask is put on the majority of those PCB, covering up the small traces but leaving the silver rings and SMD pads exposed in order that they could be soldered to.

Soldermask is commonly green in color but not quite every color is possible. We use red for almost all the SparkFun boards, white for the IOIO board, and purple to get the lily-pad planks.

Silk-screen
The white silkscreen coating is applied in addition to the soldermask layer. The silk-screen adds numbers, letters, and logos into the PCB that enable easier assembly and indicators to allow humans to understand the plank. We frequently use silkscreen tags to indicate what the function of every trap or LED.