Go back to 1947 and open up one of those vintage television sets. It’s a complicated mess of huge electrical components interconnected by an equally complex network of wires. A few years down the lane, semiconductors started flooding the market, and cookie-shaped chips began replacing vacuum tubes and relays. However, interconnections were still done with wires. Just then, fast PCB fabrication technology came into existence and everything started shrinking in size.
Room-sized computers shrunk to 7-inch tablets, desktop telephones reduced to multi-functioning smartphones. All made possible by PCB fabrication. Even television sets got rid of its large cathode ray tubes and now combine LEDs controlled by components placed on PCBs.
Fast PCB fabrication – an introduction
Semiconductor technology started the diminishing process. Resistances were no more thin copper wires mounted on a thick cylinder. It also paved the way for fabricating millions of transistors along with its interconnections on a single chip. However, such processors required connections with memory elements which together must be paired with input-output ports.
Printed circuit boards or PCBs provided the solution. Instead of complicated wiring techniques, PCBs came with printed slots to provide such connections among various electrical components. Rigid PCB manufacturer makes use layers of fiberglass and copper and tops it up with a solder mask.
Aren’t simple copper wires cheaper?
It may seem so, but the benefits of PCBs surpass this cost effective part.
Hence, what a Rigid PCB manufacturer do is, fabricate multiple PCBs with similar slots and add components at their designated place. If one component is not needed, that connection is left open.
PCBs make way for High Density Interconnect (HDI) technology
Do modern day computers run on a single PCB? It requires layers of interconnections and often provides slots to add that additional RAM or graphics card. Things are more complex in the case of supercomputers which are upgraded on a daily basis.
High Density Interconnect (HDI) technology comes with multiple layers of copper on the PCB’s fiberglass base. Each component reaches out to these layers, and various complicated interconnects are placed in series. Even, slots are provided for connecting one or more circuit boards to the present one. Hence, simple drilling of the motherboard to add a heat sink may render the whole product useless.
As much as 16 layers exist in a modern day PCB and printing can exist on both sides. Only a professional, fast PCB fabrication company with all the latest technology can reach such quality limits and provide the best-in-class circuit boards. Circuit components may be reaching new heights with ever-increasing demands for technology development; the same pace must be followed by the simple, yet powerful PCBs.
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