Best Practices to Achieve Optimal Electronic PCBs

Sep 16, 2021

Printed circuit boards or PCBs are like a nucleus of almost all electromechanical, electrical, or digital devices including the most modern and technologically advanced ones. The functionality and overall performance of the product or part in which the boards are embedded depend on these circuit boards. This aspect makes their performance, quality, design, and structure extremely significant. Optimal electronic PCBs simply mean that the PCBs and assemblies must be made of good quality, with a flawless design, manufactured as per required regulation and standard, and must meet the requirement. All this must be done with minimal wastage, and sticking to deadlines is also one of the aspects. These are basic aspects of achieving optimal PCBs or an assembly.

What Are the Best Practices for Achieving Optimal PCBs or PCBA?

OEMs who manufacture electronic devices or electromechanical products such as industrial equipment and even the ones who make high-end products such as aviation equipment, defense systems and so on must partner with a good PCB assembly services provider. This is the first step of getting optimal PCBs for your product. From the point of view of the service provider, this is huge task which needs to completed with precision. Here are some pointers which may be useful to achieve an optimal PCB assembly.

Design aspects: Design of the PCBs is absolutely crucial and any bugs in the same must be identified and fixed. If not, it impacts the fabrication, assembling, and subsequently the functionalities. While designing the board, the right components must also be selected. PCB design must not only meet the application requirements but also remove loopholes such as noise, EMI, and so on. This is especially true for network devices, phones, and other electronic appliances. The right board layer stack-up helps reduce EMI. Tracing lengths must be kept short wherever possible. Keep the digital and analog circuits separate from each other. All of these aspects would help reduce noise.
Component positioning: Mounting of components on the board and wiring them correctly can be a daunting task. It needs to be done with utmost precision, and the part numbers and other details of the components must be documented immediately along with the component placing map. Silkscreen must be used to enable visibility of component names. Orientation of the components is an important aspect. Similar components must be mounted in the same direction. Also, they must not be placed on the soldered side of the board, which lies behind the plated thru-hole components. According to SMD PCB rules, all the surface mounted devices must be positioned on one side of the board.
Heating issues: It is essential to identify bad components and check how much heat they dissipate on the board. Accordingly, you can place heat sinks and cooling fans to reduce the temperatures. Place such components evenly across the board so that there is no one portion of the board that heats up. Adding thermal reliefs is a good design option when dealing with heating issues.
Checking the layout: Once the design phase is about to end, check the layout of the board. A broader look at the board may help fix some issues if any before the boards are fabricated. Compare the layout with your design guidelines. This is an important part of the testing and inspection process which must be done at each step of PCB manufacturing. Do check for electrical wiring, design, component placement, trace lengths, signal routing, and so on. Once you tally the layout with your schema, the boards are good to pass the design stage and move to the next one.

If you are looking for an Optimal Electronic PCB Assembly or circuit boards for your product, ensure you partner with the right service provider and PCB manufacturer. It is important that they understand your requirements and deliver accordingly. Accelerated Assemblies in one of the known PCB manufacturers and service providers. The company has a team which excels in customizing the boards and assemblies to meet client requirements.