[video]What is a printed circuit board?

What is a Printed Circuit Board?

A printed circuit board, or PC board, or PCB, is a non-conductive material with conductive lines printed or etched. Electronic components are mounted on the board and the traces connect the components together to form a working circuit or assembly.

A PC board can have conductors on one side or two sides and can be multi-layer — a sandwich with many layers of conductors, each separated by insulating layers.

The most common circuit boards are made of plastic or glass-fiber and resin composites and use copper traces, but a wide variety of other materials may be used. Most PCBs are flat and rigid but flexible substrates can allow boards to fit in convoluted spaces.

Components are mounted via SMD (surface-mount) or through-hole methods.

Conductive features on printed circuit boards include copper traces, pads, and conductive planes. The mechanical structure is made up of an insulating material laminated between layers of conductors. The overall structure is plated and covered with a non-conductive solder mask, and a silk screen material is printed on top of the solder mask to provide a legend for electronic components. After these fabrication steps are completed, the bare board is sent into Printed Circuit Board Assembly, where components are soldered to the board and the PCBA can be tested.

The printed circuit board design has grown into its own vertical within the electronics industry. PCBs play an important role in that they provide electrical interconnections between components, rigid support to hold components, and a compact package that can be integrated into an end product. Even the most basic circuit board has to be carefully designed using specialized software packages, and the best software can help take a design from concept all the way through manufacturing. In this article, we'll look deeper at what is a PCB meaning, its design description, and some of the important points to understand when designing circuit boards.

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