Article

What is a printed circuit board?

Mar 21, 2018

A printed circuit board or PCB board is a think board used to connect electrical components using copper tracks instead of wires. Holes drilled in the board are used to fix the electrical components in position. They are then soldered to secure them in position and the copper tracks link them together forming a circuit. The board and the components together are known as a PCB Assembly.

These days once the design process has been carried out using computer aided design (CAD) and a plan is formed the manufacture of PCBs can be fast as it is automated through machinery and computer technology. The next part is the testing and quality control element of the process.

While many inventors had versions of PCBs it was an Austrian engineer called Paul Eisler who is credited with creating the printed circuit in 1936. Fast forward to the 1980's and boards became much smaller and had more functionality and the production costs came down significantly due to the ability to mass produce the boards and components.

The fact that the circuit is on a fixed board offers uniformity to the design and therefore finding and identifying problematic components is much easier. This means that they are much quicker to fix and maintain. This also means the chances of making a mistake in rewiring is much lower as the electronics are in a set place.

We can supply PCB board such as single-side PCB, double-side PCB, high frequency PCB and so on.

Previous: Cheapest PCB is not always the best PCB!

Next: How much does multilayer PCB fabrication cost?