Most of us are probably aware of the fact that printed circuit boards (PCB’s) are in almost all of the electrical items we use every day. They’re in items such as televisions, DVD players, PC’s, laptops and basically any other complex electrical equipment. However, most of us are probably not aware of the how companies go about PCB design and manufacturing.

To fully explain the process of PCB design would take hours, however, it is easy to get an idea of the process without going into too much detail.

Most circuit boards are made by bonding a layer of copper over an entire board. The unwanted copper is then removed by applying a template to the board and etching away the unwanted copper. This leaves the copper lines that you see going all over the board. The next stage is to drill the circuit board.

This process enables components to be soldered onto the PCB at a later stage. The drilling work would almost always be carried out by automated drilling machines which use execution files to drill the boards as required. The places where components are to be mounted will then be plated as bare copper can oxidize quickly and therefore ruin a connection. Areas which are not to be soldered can then be covered with solder mask coating to prevent solder from bridging and creating short circuits. Components can then be soldered into the holes that were drilled earlier and then the circuit board is complete.

Obviously this is just a brief run through of how PCB’s are constructed. The actual design of the PCB is a lot more complicated. For this you would need specialist companies such as ours at Concept CAD; we provide many advanced PCB design functions allowing you to choose the perfect board for whatever you may need.