Printed Circuit Boards – A Basic Guide

1. Article4: Pcbcart.com PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS – A BASIC GUIDE Today, with so many electronic devices flooding the market, everyone knows a thing or two about printed circuit boards. Electronics engineering has become a popular branch among aspirants because of the plethora of options it has of innovation and experimentation. Electronic circuit boards are something that form the backbone of every electronic device. Circuit board design needs to be done flawlessly if one wishes to generate results from the hard work done. For this purpose, it is necessary to understand the components that a printed circuit board actually does. A printed circuit board is basically a plain board which contains the components of a circuit. It consists of a conductive and a non-conductive layer. There is a surface on which components are mounted. As the technological advancements have continuously been on the rise, the size of these boards has been shrinking. One of the most famous kind of printed circuit board is the motherboard. Popularized by its extensive use in computers, a motherboard is the most important component of a computer. It has space for the circuitry required for the central processing unit, RAM, graphics processing unit and external connections. Motherboard is a large board which contains all these components of a computer. It enables communication between these components so that the computer can work as we expect it to. Another kind of circuit boards used in computers are daughter boards. These are a kind of extensions to the existing motherboards, which are meant only to enhance the capacity of the motherboard. It may house sound cards and other similar electronics which boost the performance of your computer. As stated earlier in this article, to make your computers and other devices work flawlessly, it is important to achieve printed circuit board design impeccably. There are PCB circuit design software available in the market, which one can use to make the design process more convenient. Knowing precisely for what purpose you are designing the PCB will help you achieve the end result efficiently. The first steps of designing this are usually the hardest to face. First you should choose a circuit board design software (like Eagle PCB software) to start working on the board before directly sitting down with the physical thing. Designing it on a software first will reveal errors and plus points of the design, and it will help you save on material costs. You should also take reference of the designs that others have drafted for similar end results. This will help you reduce the effort you pour in by giving you a stepping stone at the outset. You should also keep in mind that the schematics you draft take a very important place in your design. Keep them neat and you shall not face any problems than necessary while designing your board. Messy schematics tend to induce chaos in the equation, which is always unwanted. Unless you are a genius, your first design is probably going to contain many, many errors. So don’t give up! For interesting facts about PCB layout software, visit Pcbcart.com. ABOUT THE AUTHOR James Whitehall is an expert when it comes to printed circuit board manufacturing and design. He loves writing interesting articles and blogs about the topic and recommends PCBCart.com as the name to trust if you are looking printed circuit board fabrication services and support