PCBs play a crucial role in all the electronic devices people use today; they are made in different designs to meet the needs of various electronic devices. However, the manufacturing process is not a one-time thing. It is a process of five steps that must be followed carefully to ensure that the right thing is produced. The process starts with choosing the design, verifying, and continuing to the other steps, such as fabrication.
Every step in this process requires one to be guided the right way to ensure accuracy at the end of the process. Remember, the printed circuit boards always go through strict testing before they are released to be used in the market. The following are the printed circuit board manufacturing process steps:
Printed Circuit Board Designing
As mentioned earlier, this is the first step; designing a PCB always starts with a plan; the designer must display the PCB blueprint that meets the outlined requirements. However, most PCB designers use the Extended Gerber software in other terms known as IX274X. This software works perfectly as it enables the designers to do actual real work in an output format. The designer uses the Extended Gerber to encode every information they need, such as the number of solder marks copper layers, among other requirements.
Design review
After getting the design, it moves to the next step, where experts try to determine whether there might be any flaws or errors before allowing it to proceed. A specific engineer inspects all the printed circuit board design parts to ensure that nothing is missing or put wrongly in the design. Once the engineer clears the PCB design, it is allowed to move to the next step.
PCB Design printing
If the design passes the checks, it can now be printed on a particular printer called a plotter printer; this printer makes a PCB film. The film looks more like a photo negative used mostly in schools. The PCBs inside layers are represented in two inks: black ink and clear ink; the latter denotes areas in PCBs such as fiber glasses that are non-conductive, while the black ink is for copper traces.
Copper printing
This is where the manufacturer starts making the PCB; after printing the PCB design in laminated material, copper is pre-bonded in the same laminate piece serving as the PCB structure. Then they etched the copper that it could reveal the earlier blueprint.
Then a resist is used to cover the laminate panel; the resist is specially made with photo-reactive chemicals, which become harder when exposed to UV lights. When the laminate and resist get lined up, they are passed through UV lights to harden the photoresist. The role of the black ink is to ensure that the UV lights do not get to areas where they should not. When the board is ready, it is cleaned with an alkaline solution, then pressure-washed and left to dry.
Extra copper removal
This is the final step which is about the removal of any excess copper that might have been left on the board. It is done through PCB fabrication. This is done by covering the excess copper on a board and exposing it to a chemical; the process removes any piece of unprotected copper, leaving the board with the required amount of copper.
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