PCB101- PCB Design & Manufacturing

Learn to craft complete fabrication drawings with essential drill charts, drill maps, and cross-document references to IPC specs, part numbers, and revisions, including stack-up and tolerances.

Understand how rigid, flex, and rigid-flex pcbs are manufactured, including one-, two-, and multi-layer processes, hdi technology, blind, buried, and micro vias, and aluminum-backed rf designs.

Learn how a single layer pcb provides the cheapest, simplest board with the design on the top layer and components on the bottom, with no copper plating in holes.

Explain why gold fingers use hard gold finishes for reliable connectors, contrast hard gold with immersion gold and hassel/hasl, and outline layout practices to minimize via contamination.

Discover high density interconnect (hdi) technology for pcbs, including microvias and laser direct imaging, and learn about sequential lamination and via in pad plating for denser trace routing.

Castellated holes provide a cheap, edge-plated connection to mount two PCBs and solder them together, enabling PCB-to-PCB links, module breakout, or validation of solder joints.

Learn back drilling, a controlled-depth technique that removes stubs from plated through holes to prevent signal distortion, using a drill larger than the hole and strict depth tolerances.

Explore how copper coin technology enables efficient heat transfer in pcbs by embedding or cavity mounting copper coins to dissipate heat from high-heat components via vias and plating.

Edge plating adds conductive board edges for connecting internal layers to outer areas, enabling high-frequency edge connections, though it is labor intensive and costly to finish with HASL.

Learn flex design for manufacturing rules, including bending radii, cover layer use, teardrops, and avoiding vias in bends to ensure reliable flex circuits.

Compare hand soldering and SMT machines for PCB assembly, weighing prototypes against mass production. Consider connectors, through-hole parts, and setup time to decide between manual and automated methods.

Explore pcb assembly methods: reflow, wave, and selective soldering, alongside inline smt lines, pick-and-place workflows, and essential concepts like bom, dni/dnp, flux, and inspection.

Explore real technical issues in PCB design and manufacturing, focusing on why design decisions matter rather than software tools, and learn from experienced designers and curated resources.

Sign up for free access to PCB specifications at ipc.org, the world organization for PCB standards covering flex, rigid-flex, and rigid boards.

Learn the essentials of design rule checks and design for manufacturing for PCBs, including DRC, DFM, DFA basics, and manufacturability checks that reduce vias and cost.

Learn to define spacing on copper layers, including inner versus outer layer rules, edge factor and x factor, to ensure manufacturability of traces, pads, and vias.

Learn how IPC specifications govern PCB design and manufacturing, with IPC 6012 serving as the PCB acceptance standard and describing classes 1 to 3.

Identify copper slivers—thin, long features that may peel during etching or plating and cause shorts, and maintain a minimum four mil width to avoid them.

Include a dedicated outline layer with drill chart and hole symbols, ensure at least one hole with x,y coordinates, and provide a complete outline for efficient tooling.

Learn advanced pcb array design with drc, fiducials, tooling holes, tabs, and v-score scoring, focusing on robust manufacturability and proper machine alignment.