How to Accurately Manufacture PCB?

Over the years, PCB manufacturing processes have undergone tremendous changes, thanks to the innovation of new technologies, these innovations enable circuit board manufacturers to accurately and skillfully innovate.

1. Front-end Engineering Inspection

Before building a PCB prototype, there are countless aspects that can be used to plan the final result. First, the PCB manufacturer will carefully study the design of the circuit board (Gerber file) and begin to prepare the circuit board, which lists the step-by-step manufacturing instructions. After review, the engineer will convert these plans into a data format that is helpful for PCB design. The engineer will also check the format for any issues or cleanup. This data is used to create the final circuit board and provide it with a unique tool number. This number tracks the printed circuit board in the build process. Even the smallest changes to the board revision will result in a new tool number, which helps to ensure that there is no confusion during PCB manufacturing and multi-order manufacturing.

2. Drawing

After checking the correct file and selecting the most suitable panel array, the photo printing started. This is the beginning of the production process. Photoelectric plotters use lasers to draw patterns, silk screens and other main images on the PCB. 

3.Lamination and Drilling

One of the three main types of printed circuit boards, multi-layer PCBs, requires lamination to fuse multiple layers together. This is usually done using heat and pressure.

After the product is laminated, a professional drilling system will be programmed to precisely and accurately drill holes in the wood. The drilling procedure ensures that there is no human error in the PCB manufacturing process. 

4. Copper Deposition and Electroplating

The conductive copper layer deposited by electrolysis is critical to the function of all prototype printed circuit boards. After electroplating, the PCB becomes a conductive surface, and copper is electroplated on the surface through the electroplating solution. These copper traces are a conductive path that connects two points inside the PCB.

After quality assurance testing of the prototype printed circuit boards, they were made into cross-sections and finally checked for cleanliness.

As a professional FPC soft board manufacturer, XPCB Limited is so honored to have worked together with many of you. At XPCB Limited we are always more than ready to assist our new customers in any way we can.  Please feel free to contact us at any time if you have any question.