Transcript the presentation slides

Hardware & Coffee
with
PCB design &
manufacturing
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PCB design & manufacturing
5 steps to design and manufacture PCBA
PCB fabrication
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Material
prepar
ation
SMT
Reflow
Testing
& QA
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Step 1: PCB fabrication
Things to know before starting the PCB design:
1. PCB size – this depends on your product size.
2. PCB layers – the more layers, the more complex the manufacturing
of the PCB will be.
o 2 layers for simple toy products
o 4 layers for IoT related products
o 6 to 8 layers for smart phones or smart watches
3. PCB manufacturer requirements. Make sure you read the guidelines
about spacing, trace size, power isolation, and file naming before
you start designing.
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Step 1: PCB fabrication
Information you will need to provide to PCB manufacturer:
 Number of Layers (ex. 2, 4, 6,…etc.)
 Material (FR-2 (phenolic cotton paper), FR-3 (cotton paper and
epoxy), FR-4 (woven glass and epoxy…etc.)
 Thickness (0.5 mm, 1.0 mm…etc.)
 Color (Red, Black, Green…etc.)
 Surface Finish (ENIG (Electroless Nickel/Immersion Gold), DIG
(Direct Immersion Gold), OSP (Organic Solderability
Preservatives…etc.)
 Copper Weight (1 oz (35 um), 2 oz (70 um), 0.5 oz (18
um)…etc.)
 Gerber file
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Step 2: Material preparation
Once you have components selected, you can ask your PCBA
manufacturer to order them for you or you can do it yourself.
Things to keep in mind:
• Order components in reels for SMT machine automatic pick-up, not
in separate packages.
• Check MOQ of your component. If you’re buying less than the
minimum, make sure the selected components are in-stock.
• Order 10% more to account for losses (this does not apply to the
expensive components).
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Step 2: Material preparation
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Keep in mind lead time, it can be up to 8-16 weeks for some
components.
For small quantities (up to 50) you can order online from DigiKey or
Mouser.
For bigger quantities, ask your manufacturer for recommendations
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Step 3: SMT and Through-hole
There are two main methods for placing components on the PCB surface:
o Through-hole (thru-hole) is manual method of fitting components
with wire leads into hole on the PCB surface. It is also often called
DIP or Dual In-line Package process.
o SMT (Surface Mount Technology) method is the most widely used
in mass manufacturing. It is done by fast and precise SMT
machines that save you time, money, and avoid human error.
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SMT machine
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Step 3: SMT and Thru-hole
Things to remember:
• Your component type number should not exceed the number of reels the
SMT machines of your manufacturer can support.
• Optimize and consolidate your components, so to have just one SMT
run.
• Check what footprint pad sizes your manufacturer supports. Otherwise
the SMT machine will not be able to mount the components correctly.
• Some bigger components cannot be mounted by the machine and still
need manual thru-hole work. Thus, both of these technologies can be
used on the same board.
• Any components that you will need to add manually with thru-hole
method, will add to the manufacturing cost
SMT machine in action YouTube video.
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PCB assembly
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Step 4: Reflow soldering
Reflow soldering is a process that makes the components “stick” to the
PCB. The PCBA goes through a reflow oven or an infrared lamp that
heats up the board until the solder melts, permanently connecting the
components to the board.
The tricky part here is not overheating or
damaging the components, as each
package has a different thermal profile. A
reliable PCBA manufacturer will take
care of this process and all you need is
to provide the component specifications
to them.
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Reflow ovens
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Step 4: Other soldering methods
• Wave soldering is mostly used for the components added manually
using the thru-hole method. In these cases, your PCBA will first go
through reflow oven and then after adding other components
manually, it will go through a wave soldering machine.
• Iron soldering can be used in specific cases, but not usually in
mass manufacturing.
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Wave soldering machine
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Step 5: Testing & QA
Most common tests are:
• ICT (In-circuit Test). When you design a PCB, you often will reserve some
test points for debugging, programming, and other purposes. The ICT
machine will use these test points to do open/short tests and will check if the
values of the passive components, resistor, inductors, and capacitors are
within specifications.
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AOI (Automatic Optical Inspection). The manufacturers use a “golden
sample” – a reference PCBA to compare with others. For this test, the
hardware creators will need to provide specifications and tolerance
measurements to the manufacturer to set the parameters for the test.
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X-ray test. The PCBA manufacturers will use X-ray to check the soldering
conditions for BGA components that cannot be seen in an optical test.
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KingBrother is a Shenzhen based PCB manufacturer providing PCBs for UAV,
medical, and other industries for almost 20 years. They offer rapid PCB
fabrication and assembly services. They accept orders as small as 1 PCB
and they can do complex PCBs up to 30 layers.
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NexPCB Program Pathfinder. They have turn-key PCB solutions, which is
especially good if you have limited knowledge about PCB design and you
just want it to work. NexPCB offers 10% discount on its PCB layout design
and turnkey solutions for HWTrek creators.
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HQPCB Program Flash. This program is best if you're in a hurry and want to
verify the basic functions and design in a very short time-frame. They can
get the PCB fabricated in 3-4 days or in special cases in 24 hours. They
accept orders as small as 1 PCB.
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Hardware begins here
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@HWTrek
Launch your idea today!
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