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Getting a PCB prototyped with speed and precision is an intricate process to manage because the design must also be prepared for eventual long-term production. Balancing the electrical performance and the manufacturability needs of the board requires a lot from both the PCB designer and the manufacturer during the prototype phase. Here are some of the requirements that you should be familiar with so your board can progress successfully through the rapid PCB prototyping phase of its development.

When routing a trace on a printed circuit board, you can have some of the same difficulties. It can be challenging to figure out the best path for your routes through a multicolored maze of traces. Thankfully some of the tricks that we used to do with maps, like highlighting the route that we wanted to focus on, are also available to us when routing traces on a circuit board. Here we’re going to look at several PCB routing techniques that you can use to find the best course to your destination.

Printed circuit boards go through an intense process of design and manufacturing to function as required. This process involves incredible amounts of engineering expertise to produce the final result, and each step has multiple steps that must be followed meticulously for the board to operate correctly. The materials used for the manufacturing of the circuit board are a perfect example of how many details are being considered. They can vary according to the electrical performance, thermal conditions, and physical environment that the board will be operating in. Here are some particulars about PCB material properties, and how they can impact the manufacturing process of the circuit board.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, the need for rapid medical device product development has been dramatically highlighted. We all marveled at how quickly heavy equipment manufacturers switched production over to building urgently needed medical supplies such as respirators and personal protective equipment. The droves of people who stepped up with home-made protective face masks—often funding a good cause—have been positively inspiring. But for the development of new medical products, this ingenuity needs to be taken to the next level. Medical device innovators need to partner with electronics manufacturers that are equipped to handle these six challenges in the development of their products.

During the fabrication of a circuit board, there’s a tremendous amount of heat and pressure used that can cause failures if the board is not designed correctly for it. In the same way, the temperatures used during assembly for soldering components to the board can create problems if the board isn’t designed specifically to evenly distribute the heat. Fortunately, there are design techniques that can mitigate these problems.

To avoid designing a circuit board that isn’t manufacturable, minimum standards for component spacing must be adhered to in the design layout. Of course, there are many other factors to consider as well, including the electrical and thermal performance of the board, but designing for manufacturability (DFM) is just as important. There are industry standards that offer some assistance with this, however, and here we’ll look at how IPC component spacing guidelines can help as you design.