PCB Tech - Three minutes to understand what PCBA is

I believe that many people are not unfamiliar with PCB circuit boards, and they may often hear them in daily life, but they may not know much about PCBA, and they may even confuse PCBA with PCB. So what is PCB? How did PCBA evolve? What is the difference between PCB and PCBA? How can electronic product solution providers find suitable PCBA suppliers for R&D and production? Now follow the editor to clarify your ideas.

What is PCB?

PCB (Printed Circuit Board), the Chinese name is printed circuit board, also known as printed circuit board. It is an important electronic component, a support for electronic components, and a carrier for electrical connection of electronic components. PCB is called "electronics". The mother of products". Because it is made by electronic printing, it is called a "printed" circuit board.

Before the advent of the PCB, the interconnection between electronic components was done directly by wires. Nowadays, wires are only used in laboratories for test applications, and printed circuit boards must have taken a dominant position in the electronics industry.

PCB production process:

Contact the manufacturer - cutting - drilling - copper sinking - pattern transfer - pattern plating - film removal - etching - green oil - characters - gold-plated fingers - forming - testing - final inspection

PCB* advantages: high density, high reliability, designability, manufacturability, testability, assemblability, and maintainability.

How did PCBA evolve?

PCBA is the abbreviation of Printed Circuit Board + Assembly in English, which means that the empty PCB board passes through SMT loading or the entire process of DIP plug-in, referred to as PCBA.

SMT and DIP are both ways to integrate parts on the PCB. The main difference is that SMT does not need to drill holes on the PCB. In DIP, the PIN pins of the parts need to be inserted into the holes that have been drilled.

SMT (Surface Mounted Technology) surface mount technology mainly uses mounters to mount some tiny electronic parts on the PCB. The production process is: PCB board positioning, solder paste printing, mounter mounting, and return. Welding furnace and finished inspection. SMT is very sensitive to positioning and the size of parts during integration. In addition, the quality of solder paste and printing quality also play a key role.

DIP stands for "plug-in", that is, inserting parts on the PCB board. Due to the large size of electronic parts and not suitable for mounting or the manufacturer's production process cannot use SMT technology, the parts are integrated in the form of plug-ins. At present, there are two implementation methods of manual plug-in and robot plug-in in the industry. The main production process is: sticking adhesive (to prevent tin plating to the place where it should not be), plug-in, inspection, wave soldering, and brushing (removing in the furnace Stains left in the process) and made inspection.

The difference between PCB and PCBA

After a brief introduction by the editor, you should be able to know that PCBA refers to a processing process in general, and can also be understood as a finished circuit board, that is, PCBA can be counted after all the processes on the PCB board are completed. The PCB refers to an empty printed circuit board with no parts on it.

Simply put: PCBA is a finished board, and PCB is a bare board.

After understanding what PCB and PCBA are, how should electronic product solution providers* find suitable PCBA suppliers for R&D and production?