A Brief introduction for different layers on Multilayer PCB

October 29th, 2021

When it comes to multilayer PCB, we know the multilayer PCB are consisted by many different layers. Do you know what’s the purpose for these layers?

Here I would like to give you a brief introduction for the functions of each layer on a Multilayer PCB design.

Mechanical layer: There may be one or several mechanical layers in a PCB depending on the design. There should be at least one mechanical layer as it shows the physical dimensions of the board. Generally, it used GM1, GM2 to name the file on the Gerber.

Solder paste layer: This is a material applied onto the PCB layers where components are mounted, mostly through soldering. It helps with the bonding of the solder with the component pin and improves the solder flow. PCB Assembly supplier will make stencil according to the solder paste layer on the Gerber.

Generally, it used GPS, GBS to name the file on the Gerber.

Solder mask layer: This layer is a mask or a protective coating applied onto the board to prevent damage and contamination. It is typically green in color; however, you can also choose other colors such as blue, black, white depending upon your requirements. Generally, it used GBS, GTS to name the file on the Gerber.

Ground planes and power planes: These are layers for copper, the ground and the power planes are connected to an onboard voltage point. Generally, it used GND, PWR to name the file on the Gerber.

Split planes: This is a modified version of power and ground planes; they are split in a manner that they can be connected to multiple voltage points or potentials.

Keep out layer: This layer is crucial as it defines the working boundary and keeps it separate from the outer mechanical layer. Generally, it used GKO to name the file on the Gerber.

Silkscreen layer: This is typically the text displayed on the boards through which you can identify components with their names. It is typically white in color when solder mask color is green, black, blue and red. But you can also choose other colors such depending upon your requirements. Generally it used GTO, GBO to name the file on the Gerber.

Routing layer: These layers help to interconnect the components. They can also be present on the top and bottom layers of the board.

Drilling Layer: This is the layer to show the drilling information of the PCB. Usually, it names DRL on the Gerber.

Once we understand the purpose of each layer for PCB, then understanding the construction of PCB becomes easy, no matter how complicated the board structure.

With over 15 years of PCB manufacturing experience, BEST Technology can meet different requests from customers no matter it is prototype or high-volume PCB.

Send us your request, let us to make the high-quality printed circuit boards for you.

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Notes for cleaning PCBA

October 18th, 2021

PCBA includes components assembly and DIP plug-in, in the whole process, there will be reflow soldering, wave soldering, manual soldering, due to the current Electronic products are getting smaller and smaller, and the size requirements of PCBA are getting smaller and smaller, but the requirements for quality (including product reliability and stability, etc.) are getting higher and higher. Many customers require PCBA boards with conformal coating to increase stability and reliability and ensure product quality and performance. But the PCBA board must be cleaned before with conformal coating.

Because there will be a variety of flux residues on the soldered MCPCB board, some of which are acidic, soluble and corrosive, etc., if these residues are not cleaned, the coating will also cause very great damage to the product. In this blog I’d like to share some notes for cleaning PCBA.

PCBA board after soldering, should be cleaned as soon as possible (flux residue will produce corrosion over time), cleaning residual flux and other pollutants on PCBA board.

When cleaning the PCBA board, prevent the cleaning agent from intruding into the unsealed components to avoid damage to the components. After cleaning, it should be placed in the oven at about 30-50 degrees, baked for about half an hour, and then removed after drying PCBA board.

When cleaning the PCBA board, protect the components and labels on the board. Otherwise, the mounted and welded PCBA board will be wasted.

Cleaning PCBA board affects the life and reliability of electronic products. Some of PCBA boards are not cleaned, which may lead to short circuit and leakage, leading to unqualified products and many failures, increasing the cost of recovery and maintenance, so it is not worth the loss to clean PCBA boards.

EBest Circuit (Best Technology) has our own SMT factory and can help our customers to buy the components at the same time. If you have any new inquiry of PCBA, welcome to send it to me then I can send you the quotation for comparison with your other suppliers.

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About the “heat” problem in PCB & MCPCB

October 18th, 2021

For high-power products, the concept of “heat” is often mentioned, which is especially important in high-power products. It not only determines the service life of the product, but also relates to whether the product can work properly.

We will explain the “heat” problem in circuit board design from three aspects: the generation of heat, the impact of heat on the product and the “heat” in the system layout.

1. Heat generation:

Heat generation in a system takes several paths:

1) Power consumption of the component itself

2) Efficiency of power conversion devices

3) High frequency signal conversion heating

4) Power consumption of contact resistance and wire resistance during signal transmission

2. Impact of fever on products

The operating temperature of components is generally below 80 degree, and the operating temperature of commonly used capacitors and resistors is generally controlled below 50 degree. If the temperature of the system is not controlled, the following conditions may occur:

1) The temperature rise will cause the working parameters of components to change, resulting in the unstable working performance of the whole system.

2) Temperature rise will accelerate the aging of components, affecting the accuracy and life of components.

3) Temperature rise will cause circuit board deformation and poor connection of components.

General heat dissipation components arrangement

3. “Hot” considerations in system layout

1) Selection and layout of the chassis: choose materials with good thermal conductivity, such as aluminum alloy

2) Black heat absorbing material is coated inside the shell to enhance the function of radiation heat absorption

3) The shell is closely combined with the components with high calorific value to conduct heat dissipation

4) A large number of heating components should be placed at the edge of the plate to shorten the heat transfer path. Heat-resistant components should be kept away from light sources.

5) In the design process, the appropriate wire width and copper thickness should be selected, and the influence of wiring density on the current-carrying capacity should also be considered. Copper foil should be filled in the gap of the board surface as far as possible for heat conduction. The heat conduction hole can help effectively heat dissipation and reduce local temperature.

In the design of circuit board, how to effectively control the temperature of the system is a problem that must be considered.

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The function of solder mask layer on the PCB Board.

September 20th, 2021

At last time, we shared a blog talking about Why most of the PCB boards are green?. Believe you’ve known the reasons for why most of solder mask colors are green.

Today, let’s share something about the function of solder mask on the Printed Circuits Boards.

The solder mask layer is designed mainly to prevent the PCB copper foil from being directly exposed to the air and play a role in protecting the PCB surface, which is also to prevent the area that should not be soldered from being soldered.

As we know that almost all the PCB need to do the assembly, which need to go through the reflow soldering while the assembly, and solder mask plays an important role during control of the reflow soldering process.

Here is a summary for what solder mask roles played on the board:

(1) Prevent physical disconnection of conductor circuits on the circuits board;

(2) In the welding process, solder mask can prevent short circuit caused by bridging;

(3) solder mask can reduce copper pollution to the soldering trough;

(4) Print solder mask on the PCB can prevent insulation deterioration and corrosion caused by external environmental factors such as dust and moisture;

(5) Solder mask are with high insulation; it is possible to increase the density of the circuit.

In terms of solder mask material, it must be used through liquid wet process or dry film lamination.

Dry film solder mask materials are supplied in a thickness of 0.07-0.1mm (0.03-0.04″), which can be suitable for some surface mount products, but this material is not suitable for PCBs with tighter pitches.

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Why choose MCPCB rather than FR4 PCB for high power LED?

September 20th, 2021

Compared to conventional LED, high-power LED consume more electricity and require higher currents, but the heat generated in the end cannot be dissipated in time through the ordinary FR4 CPB. And there will be some failures when the heat from a LED is not properly removed, the LED’s light output is reduced as well as degradation when the heat remains stagnant in the LED package.

So if the PCB requires fast cooling, it’s better to use a metal base rather than a traditional FR-4 substrate. The typical LED MCPCB is a single circuitry layer copper foil which is bonded to a layer of thermally conductive dielectric material which is bonded to a thicker layer of metal like Aluminium or Copper base, the purpose of a MCPCB is to efficiently remove the heat from all topical IC’s (not just LEDs). Following are the comparison between FR4 PCB and MCPCB for your reference.

1. Thermal Dissipation

FR4 has low thermal conductivity, typically around 0.3W/m.K, while MCPCB has higher thermal conductivity, ranging from 1.0-7.0W/m.K. MCPCB transfer heat 8 to 9 times faster than FR4 PCB, the dielectric layer must be very thin to create the shortest path from the heat source to the supporting metal plate, its thickness is normally between 0.003 and 0.006 inches.

As an example, consider that a test conducted on an MCPCB with integrated 1W LED showed how its temperature remained pretty close to the ambient temperature of 25°C, while the same power LED mounted on a FR-4 board reached a temperature 12°C higher than the ambient one.

2. Better Strength and Stability

Since high power LED chips are usually assembled directly on the PCB, these LEDs can create stability and reliability problems for the circuit. Without adopting the right technique, heat dissipation can hinder the performance of electronic devices that operate at high power. The use of metal PCBs in these applications effectively solves this problem. In addition to ensuring a high durability, aluminum is very light, and adds strength and resilience to the printed circuit board without causing an increase in weight.

3. Dimensional Stability

The size of a metallic printed circuit board remain more stable, as environmental conditions vary, than that of a PCB made with traditional materials, such as FR-4. Subjected to a heating process from 30°C to about 150°C, PCBs with metal layers (such as aluminum) have undergone a very small variation in size, ranging from 2.5% to 3.0%.

If you have other questions about MCPCB, welcome to contact us.

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Why most of PCB boards are green?

August 24th, 2021

You may have found such a situation, most of the PCB boards are with green colors, while other colors are relatively rare to see, do you know why?

As we know that the Printed Circuits Board consists of Solder Mask Layer, Silk screen layer, solder PAD, Copper traces, surface finishing and other parts, etc.

Among them, the solder mask refers to the part of the PCB that is covered by oil. Since most PCB boards use green oil, the part of the green oil that can be seen on the board surface is the solder mask, which play an important role during the reflow soldering process.

Then why are most of the PCB boards green? The main reasons are as follows:

Green is less irritating to the eyes. We all know that green is good for the eyes and can resists fatigue. So when the PCB board with green solder mask, relative production and maintenance personnel are not prone to eye fatigue when staring at the PCB board for a long time, and it is less harmful to the eyes.

2. Cost for Green oil is lower. Since green is the mainstream in the production process, the purchase of natural green oil will be larger, and the purchase cost of green solder mask will be lower than other colors. At the same time, using the same color oil in mass production can also reduce the replacement cost.

When the board works on the SMT soldering process, it needs to go through the process from Tinning, post soldering and final AOI inspection. These processes all need to be optically positioned and calibrated. The green background color is better for the recognition of the instrument.

Okay, now, do you understand why most of PCB boards are with green colors?

Though we know green is the most common one, but other colors such as red, yellow, blue, purple, black or some other colors are okay for us to make.

If you have PCB board with a special color want to make, please contact us and we will try best effort to meet your request.

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Advantages of Sink-pads Copper Substrate in the Field of LED Products

August 17th, 2021

For LED packaging, the cooling performance of the substrate will directly affect the relevant performance of the LED. Due to the low thermal conductivity of the insulation layer, the overall thermal conductivity is generally only 2~5W / (m K), which often causes high working temperature, stability and life decline of LED. Therefore, it is necessary to know the advantages of sinkpad copper substrate.

From the perspective of substrate, the application advantages of copper substrate in heat dissipation.

The copper substrate is used in the field of heat dissipation, mainly because the sinkpad copper substrate has the following advantages: high density, strong heat dissipation ability, the circuit part and the contact part of the products to achieve zero thermal resistance, can effectively extend the life of the products. Large power, strong thermal bearing capacity of copper substrate, according to the actual work requirements of tin spray, gold precipitation, silver plating and other effective treatment, to ensure the effectiveness of the surface treatment.

From the perspective of production process, the application advantages of thermal power separation copper substrate in module thermal resistance and chip temperature compared with ordinary copper substrate.

Different LED models and modules cause different thermoelectric effects. When using the common copper substrate, the junction temperature of LED chip is 72.41 â„ƒ. However, when using the sink-pad copper substrate link, the detection shows that: the junction temperature of LED chip is 48.72 â„ƒ. When using the common copper substrate, the thermal resistance of the module is 4.24 â„ƒ /W. However, after the use of sink-pad copper substrate, the overall thermal resistance of the module was detected to be 2.13 â„ƒ /W. Due to the different material properties, the thermal resistance of the module thermometer at the bottom of the substrate was different.

From the perspective of heat dissipation theory, for the ordinary copper substrate, the diffusion path of the heat flow is the line layer (copper foil) â†’ thermal conductivity insulation layer copper base. The interface between metal and insulation has high thermal resistance and low thermal conductivity. In the sinkpad copper substrate, the convex platform and the base are actually a whole, and most of the heat will choose to spread through the metal, and only a small amount of heat is transmitted through the interface between the metal and the insulating layer, which greatly improves the thermal conductivity of the substrate.

According to the heat dissipation theory of LED, reducing the junction temperature of LED beads can effectively improve the light output efficiency of LED, enhance the performance stability of LED, and greatly extend the service life of LED module.

Therefore, in LED products application, the choice of thermal separated copper substrate is the best choice.

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Baking Time & Temperature Standard of MCPCB

August 17th, 2021

After manufacturing the Metal Core PCB, there is a shelf life, once the shelf life has passed, we need to bake the bare board before assembling the components, otherwise the MCPCB is prone to burst when the SMT line is produced. There are industry specifications for both how long MCPCB can be stored and how long they can be baked.

MCPCB Control Standard

Unpacking & Storage
If the packing bag is sealed, and the manufacturing date is within 2 months, it can be directly used before assembly.
The manufacturing date is within 2 months, and the unpacking date must be marked after unpacking.
The manufacturing date is within 2 months, and it must be assembled and used within 5 days after unpacking.

Baking Time
If unpacked for more than 5 days within 2 months of the manufacturing date, bake at 120±5°C for 1 hour
Two months after the manufacturing date, baking at 120±5°C for 1 hour before assembly.
Two to Six months after the manufacturing date, baking at 120±5°C for 2 hours before assembly.
Six to Twelve months after the manufacturing date, baking at 120±5°C for 4 hours before assembly.
The MCPCB after baking must be used up within 5 days (put into IR REFLOW), and unused board must be baked for another hour before assembly.
Over half one year after the manufacturing date, bake at 120±5°C for 4 hours before assembly, and then send it to the production line to do HASL_LF before using.

Preservation & Baking Standard for in different regions

The specific storage time and baking temperature of MCPCB are not only related to the production capacity and production process of manufacturer, but also have a great relationship with the region.

For areas with heavier humidity, the MCPCB must be used up within 24 hours when exposed to the air, otherwise it is easy to oxidize. After normal opening, it is best to use it up in 8 hours.

For areas with a relatively dry climate, the preservation time of PCB will be longer, and the baking time can also be shorter. The baking temperature is generally 120±5°C, and the baking time is determined according to the specific situation.

The MCPCB with OSP or Gold Immersion has a shelf life of 6 months after packaging, and it is generally not recommended to bake for MCPCB with OSP.

If you have other questions about MCPCB, welcome to contact us.

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Why use ceramic circuit boards

August 11th, 2021

With the continuous upgrading and optimization of electronic products, the PCBs as the carrier of components have also been continuously improved, and ceramic circuit boards have appeared. So, compared with traditional glass fiber (FR-4), aluminum-based and copper-based, what’s the advantages of ceramic PCB?

1. Stable flatness

Ordinary PCB is usually made by bonding copper foil and substrate, and the substrate material is mostly glass fiber (FR-4), phenolic resin (FR-3), aluminum-based, copper-based, PTFE, composite ceramics and other materials. The mixture is usually phenolic, epoxy, etc. Due to thermal stress, chemical factors, improper production technology and other reasons during PCB processing, or due to asymmetric copper paving on both sides during the design process, it is easy to cause the PCB board to warp to varying degrees.
The ceramic circuit board isÂ hard with good heat dissipation performance, and low thermal expansion coefficient. At the same time, the ceramic circuit board is bonded to the base material by magnetron/vacuum sputtering. The bonding force is strong and the copper foil will not fall off. High reliability, thus avoiding the

2. Large current carrying capacity:

100A current continuously passes through the 1mm 0.3mm copper board, and the temperature rise is about 17°C; 100A current continuously passes through the 2mm 0.3mm board, and the temperature rise is only about 5°C.

3. Thermal conductivity:

The thermal conductivity of alumina can reach 15~35, and that of aluminum nitride can reach 170~230. Because in the case of high bonding strength, its thermal expansion coefficient will be more matched, and the tested tensile value can reach 45 MPa.

4. Thermal conductivity:

The thermal conductivity of the high thermal conductivity aluminum substrate is generally 1-4W/M. K, and the thermal conductivity of the ceramic substrate can reach about 220W/M. K depending on its preparation method and material formula.

5. Low thermal resistance:

The thermal resistance of a 10—10mm ceramic substrate is 0.63mm thick. The thermal resistance of a ceramic substrate is 0.31K/W, the thermal resistance of a 0.38mm thick ceramic substrate is 0.19K/W, and the thermal resistance of a 0.25mm thick ceramic substrate is 0.14K /W.

6. Good insulation performance, high pressure resistance, protection of personal safety and equipment, strong bonding force, bonding technology, copper foil will not fall off, high reliability, stable performance in high temperature and high humidity environments.

7. Stable high-frequency performance, AK and DK values are lower than its PTFE, in line with ceramics.

In summary, with its advantages, ceramic circuit boards have been used in high-power power electronic modules, solar panel components, high-frequency switching power supplies, solid state relays, automotive electronics, aerospace, military electronics, high-power LED lighting products, and communications Antennas, automotive sensors, refrigeration sheets and other fields are widely used.

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What kind of test for Coil Printed Circuit Board?

August 11th, 2021

In year 2019, one of our US customers asked us, Marina can EBest Circuit (Best Technology) make a Coil PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with FR4 material? Yes, of course, we can make different kinds of PCB for our customer, included for the Coils PCB, which currently is widely used for wireless charging and antenna products. Please see the following Coils board from EBest Circuit (Best Technology).

The manufacturing process is same as other PCB manufacturing process, and just make sure the etching process and pay attention for the etching tolerance of the coils trace. And when coils PCB board finished, do you know what kind of test need to do to check the functional of Coils boards?

Today I would like to share how EBest Circuit (Best Technology) test Coil PCB board. Everyone knows that we check the quality of PCB board with Flying probe tester,Â as the production efficiency is extremely low and the inductance and capacitance cannot be accurately measured. In this way, we need to use LCR meter to make verify the inductance and capacitance. See the LCT meter as following.

EBest Circuit (Best Technology) chooses the digital meter LCR Meter to test the impedance characteristics of the coil. From the LCR tester you know see two numbers, one for inductance and another for resistance.

After test each coils printed circuit board, we will make record at our paper to make sure every measurement data will meet for customer requirement.

Currently, LCR Meter only provides a single-channel test function, and can only test the impedance characteristics of a set of coils at a time. But this is the effective test method for Coil printed Circuit Board. But we believe we will buy more LCR meters to let the test coil board become quicker.

If you have any comments on the testing for Coil printed circuit board, you are welcome to send us query and we are happy to discuss with you. You can visit www.bestpcbs.com to know more about us. Thank you

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