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It’s hard to imagine now, but seat belts weren’t required in cars at one-time. However, the lap and shoulder-harness seat belt became the industry and cultural standard in most places after many injuries. Now you can’t drive too far down the freeway without seeing a “Click It or Ticket” sign posted alongside the road.

Designing and manufacturing PCBs is so complex that it’s easy to forget what happens to a fully-functioning and regulated board once it leaves the shop. After a hopefully long and uneventful service life, the board will naturally reach the end of its use or become obsolete due to the presence of a revision, upgrade, or entirely new product. The business world refers to this situation as an externality: an unintended consequence of industry.

For longevity and the best performance of the circuit board, it must be handled with the greatest of care. Here, we will look at some potential problems associated with rough treatment and the rules for handling printed circuit boards to avoid these undesirable consequences.

The question on everyone’s mind now is how long these shortages will continue. OEMs want to return to full production of their products, manufacturers want to supply customers’ demand, and end-users want access to the latest products. Here we’ll look at the electronics parts shortage, how it is affecting the printed circuit board industry and some ways that designers can work around these problems.

A four-layer PCB layout involves some practices that differ intensively from a more populated board. Fortunately, most 4-layer PCB layouts exist on the less complicated side of the design spectrum. As in all things, form follows function, and the designer should be well aware of the limitations of a four-layer stackup and how best to maximize their space to excel during the design phase.

While supply chain problems are evident in most industries, it is especially noticeable in electronics production. Designers continue to face part shortages and challenges in getting circuit boards manufactured. Here we’ll outline some of the causes of these problems and the PCB supply chain best practices that will help.