Simplifying The Printed Circuit Board Design Process - Miracle Electronics

Designing Printed Circuit Boards is a challenging task that requires complete understanding of more than just circuit functionality, such as how the board will fit within the application, how heat will be dispersed within the board, and much more. With all of this to be considered, designing a Printed Circuit Board can become really complicated, which is why you’ll need to get your circuit boards from a professional PrintedCircuit Board manufacturer in India, who has complete knowledge and understanding of every aspect of the PCB as well as its designing procedure. 

One such manufacturer is Miracle Electronics, who has been manufacturing a wide range of PCBs and supplying them successfully to clients across the globe since more than a decade now. However, this blog also lets you know a few tips to simplify thePCB design process, bringing ease to the oh-so-very complicated process.

Spacing between components

One may want to stuff as many components onto the board as possible. However, there must be ample space left between the components. Putting up components too close to one another can create a number of problems. Also, cramping up the components together may leave very little room for wiring; thus creating additional problems. Thus, there must always be enough space left between components to avoid any such problems, while also making it simpler to solder the components in place, and making auto-routing easier.

Orientation of components

The components must be placed within the same orientation. Keeping a single orientation throughout the entire circuit board can lead to fewer errors during the soldering process, while also making inspecting the circuit boards simpler.

A small loop size

Keeping the loops small in size ensures avoiding certain issues. Smaller loops themselves possess lower inductance; however, keeping the loops over a ground plane can reduce inductance even more. Smaller loops also reduce high-frequency voltage spikes and the number of signals in the node.

Appropriate trace size

Copper plays an important role in a circuit board design; and equally important is the amount of resistance within the copper wires. It is thus important to size the traces appropriately to account for things like voltage drop, power dissipation, and temperature increase. And for this, the length, width, and thickness must be factored in to control resistance. Because the physical properties of the metal cannot be controlled, the size of the metal can be decided upon to combat resistance and other challenged that can affect the performance of the circuit board.

Correct placing of decoupling capacitors

Decoupling capacitors play a significant role in a circuit board design, but only if they are placed appropriately. They must be placed as close as possible to the power and ground pins of the integrated circuits to improve their efficiency and reduce inductance.

Avoiding 90 degree trace angles

Creating a 90 degree trace angle can prove to be problematic; for example, the outside corner becomes narrower than the standard trace width, or multiple angles can only be partially traced, leading to shorting and other problems. Thus, instead of 90 degree angles, 45 degree angles must be chosen, to ensure that etching can be fully accomplished, while avoiding shorting.

Important Considerations While Manufacturing A PCB Assembly - Miracle Electronics

PCBs are the integral part of almost every electronic device that we use on a day to day basis, which tells electricity where to head to, so that our electronics are brought to life. But, have you ever thought about how these tiny boards are made to function so effectively at such high levels?

Direct plating

Plating is an electrochemical process that involves depositing metal onto the surface of the PCB, and inside the plated through holes. Direct plating is an environment-friendly low-cost process, which eliminates the use of heavy metals, against the alternative electrochemical plating.

Etching

When a copper layer is applied onto the board, etching out the unwanted copper from the prefabricated laminate is an important step, which is done using various kinds of materials, the two most common ones being Ferric Chloride and Ammonium Persulphate.

Photographic processing

Photographic processing is another important process, which involves covering the copper on the bare board with a thin lining of photo-resist, after which it is exposed to light through a photographic film, which details all the relevant tracks that will now be on the new board.

Screen printing

Screen printing is where a silkscreen layer is added onto a PCB, in order to identify all the components of a board, along with the logos, warning symbols, test points, and other marks. Silkscreen can be applied using a variety of ways, like manual screen printing, direct legend printing, and liquid photo imaging.

Reflow Soldering Technology

Reflow soldering technology is the process of applying solder paste as a means of temporarily attaching thousands of small electrical parts to the contact pads, which is then subjected to controlled heat for reliable soldering.

Selection of PCB assembly equipment

You need the right PCB equipment suitable for every job. Using substandard tools and equipment might bring to you faulty products. Some of the best equipment that you must use include –

•    Solder paste printing machine for screen printing of solder paste to the PCB
•     Dispenser for dispensing adhesives on the PCB
•     Pick and place machine for picking and placing components onto the PCB
•     Reflow soldering machine and wave soldering machine for soldering
•     Functional Verification Test device for verifying the device under test functions
•     In-Circuit Test fixture for checking shorts, opens, resistance, and capacitance
•    Solder Paste Inspection machine for quickly and efficiently inspecting the         accuracy of the solder paste on the PCB

Selection of photographic tools

PCB assembling is a very long process that involves a number of steps like fabrication, material inspection, solder paste printing, reflow soldering, X-ray inspection, wave soldering, manual soldering, and more. All these steps require the use of the right photographic tools such as milling machines, paper slitting cutting machines, and post-press equipment.

PCB testing procedures

PCB testing is absolutely essential to prevent any errors or mishaps in the future, and ensure that the manufactured products won’t fail or experience a shortened shelf life. While the selection of a test depends upon what the designer wants to achieve, some example of functional tests include X-ray inspection, micro-sectioning analysis, PCB solderability test, solder float test, peel test, and PCB contamination test.

With all such processes in place, a reliable PCB assembly manufacturer from India like Miracle Electronics can bring up PCB assemblies that are of the best quality, meeting the highest benchmarks, following RoHS and REACH compliance, and meeting standard ISO certification criteria.

Cyber Risk In Electronics Manufacturing – How To Combat It - Miracle Electronics

Technology is always evolving; and with the rising technologies comes a risk of cyber security. For example, digital connectivity, sensor technologies, and iCloud infrastructure bring a lot many advantages like higher product quality, reduced downtime, better production, improved maintenance, and much more.

But, at the same time, these advancements bring an increased risk of cyber attacks, especially for the electronics manufacturing industry, which has been one of the top eight industries to report data breaches the most. Hence, it is very crucial to stringently control such cyber security to ward off any potential risks that may arise because of it. Below mentioned, in this blog, are some of the important steps that electronic manufacturing services providers, like Miracle Electronics, should be taking to protect their productivity and processes.

The current scenario

Before diving into the ways of combating cyber threats in the electronics manufacturing industry, let us first understand the current scenario of the trade.

• As a result of the rapid advancement of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there is increasing cyber threat that manufacturers are experiencing. This makes cyber security a critical pillar of Industry 4.0.
• 85% of electronics manufacturers in India claim that cyber security is a key element of their digital transformation blueprint. And, 82% of them have a clearly defined cyber security strategy.
• Coming to maintaining a consistent level of cyber security across the breadth of their information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) environments, 71% of electronics manufacturers in India are bringing together IT and OT to digitize their business.
• Majority of manufacturers express confidence in their own cyber security defences, but they are always less certain for the same about their supply chain partners. Only 11% of manufacturers today claim that they insist on their suppliers to provide evidence of their cyber security defences.

Strategies to combat cyber threats

As part of the digital transformation processes that electronics manufacturers adopt in their industries, there are five very important strategies that they should be putting in place.

1. First and foremost, every electronics manufacturing company should ensure that their information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) environments are unified. Then, there must also be a company-wide commitment to shared responsibility in protecting against cyber threats.
2. There must be vigilance in protecting intellectual property and valuable intellectual intelligence.
3. Business continuity and the availability of manufacturing operations should be maintained.
4. The integrity, confidentiality, and availability of the entire supply chain must be thoroughly verified, insisting that the suppliers provide evidence of their robust cyber security defences.
5. The best possible practices must be followed in order to secure new routes to market and increase customer engagement.

In short, there must be cohesiveness maintained across the entire IT landscape, right from the programmable logic controllers used on the factory floor to the integration of cloud-based machine learning. With these five stringent policies, every electronic manufacturing services provider can lead the industry; and following such critical measures can have the electronic manufacturing industry be completely free of any potential cyber threats.