Printed Circuit Board Blog

UC Berkeley CalSTAR Rocketry Team

February 11, 2019
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Our PCBs for Education program enables us to help future engineers by actively partnering with students in support of their classroom engineering projects and team competitions. This month we'd like to highlight the CalSTAR Rocketry Team from UC Berkeley, which designs and builds high-powered rockets for multiple national and international competitions.

Design Considerations with Heavy Copper

January 31, 2019
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Minimum line width is one of the first questions asked of a PCB manufacturer’s capabilities, but the answer rarely includes “depending on copper weight.” To simplify your design process and avoid problems at the time of manufacturing, we will demonstrate …

Printed Circuit Board Laminate Material Trends

December 31, 2018
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Recently, we at Bay Area Circuits, have seen an increase in demand for Ventec’s laminate materials in part because of the proliferation of LED lighting and IoT (Internet of Things) products which often have greater than normal requirements for thermal …

Optimize PCB Manufacturing: Technical Tips for Success

November 30, 2018
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Designing a printed circuit board poses many challenges. It can be exhilarating to complete a design and send it off to manufacturing but later deflating to receive boards and identify a failure that could have been prevented. Was a mistake …

Introduction to IPC Inspection Guidelines

September 30, 2018
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Acceptable Quality Level Before discussing IPC Inspection Guidelines, it’s important to understand the meaning of the term Acceptable Quality Level (AQL), also referred to as Acceptance Quality Limit. It is an inspection standard that prescribes the range of the number …

Bare Printed Circuit Board Electrical Test

May 31, 2018
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Visual inspections are performed following the manufacturing process of a printed circuit board to identify any potential problems. While that may work fine for a two-layer PCB, for multi-layer PCBs, it is almost impossible to visually inspect the internal layers …

Solder Paste Stencil Basics

April 30, 2018
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Solder Paste Stencils In the printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) and manufacturing electronics world, solder paste stencils are not so different from the common stencils used to paint letters/numbers or draw shapes. Solder paste stencils are designed for a similar …

Introduction to Drilling and Vias

March 31, 2018
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It wasn’t that long ago a printed circuit board was drilled using a simple drill press. The operator had to manually move the panel to the correct x and y coordinate and then pull the lever to drill an individual …

Advantages of the Gerber X2 Format

December 31, 2017
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In 2014, a new Gerber format was released call Gerber X2 (or version 2) by Ucamco, owners of the Gerber standard. If this is news to you, Ucamco has put together an excellent 5 minute intro video which can be …

Reshoring of Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing

November 30, 2017
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For many people, the words “Made in the USA” have become a rallying cry. In fact, a survey done in 2012 found that 83% of US citizens disapprove of companies that manufacture their goods overseas and they are interested in …

Bay Area Circuits Celebrates Manufacturing Day

October 9, 2017
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Bay Area Circuits, hosted a Manufacturing Day event on Friday, October 6th for the fourth consecutive year. The company opened its doors to give college engineering students a tour of its printed circuit board manufacturing operations and a look at the latest equipment upgrades and technological advancements in the industry.

Basic PCB Design Tips & Tricks

September 30, 2017
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Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are made from fiberglass reinforced plastic with the copper wiring in trace form. All the circuit board components are held in position by soldering the components into place after drilling holes in the demarcated areas on …

September 19, 2017
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Silicon Valley, CA – September 19, 2017 – Bay Area Circuits, Inc., a leading manufacturer of quick-turn printed circuit boards (PCBs), today announced the release of a significant update to its automated, online DFM tool, InstantDFM. InstantDFM enables printed circuit …

September 11, 2017
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Rancho Dominguez, CA – September 11, 2017 – Excellon announces the installation of an HS-2L Intelli-Drill System at Bay Area Circuits, Inc. of Fremont, California. The Excellon HS-2L Intelli-Drill™ System provides capabilities such as post lamination tooling optimization for multi-layers, …

5 Electronics Design Tips for Beginners

August 31, 2017
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The topic of Electronics Design can cover a vast array of technical options. This article will focus on some of the basics. A schematic drawing is only one part of creating a design in electronic engineering. Your schematic should be …

An Introduction to PCB Arrays

July 31, 2017
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What is a PCB Array? What do you think of when you hear the word “array”? Perhaps you think of an antenna array, or possibly some type of mathematical array or maybe even Video Graphics Array (VGA like the adapter …

July 20, 2017
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Silicon Valley, CA, July 20, 2017 – Bay Area Circuits, Inc., a leading quick-turn manufacturer of printed circuit boards (PCBs), recently provided PCB manufacturing support to collegiate solar vehicle teams through its PCBs for Education program. The CalSol (UC Berkeley) …

Printed Circuit Boards Require Counterbores and Countersinks

June 30, 2017
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In this post, we’ll introduce the concept of Countersinks and Counterbores and how these are used in Printed Circuit Boards (of course, countersinks and counterbores are not anything unique to printed circuit boards and are used in a variety of …

November 11, 2016
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This year’s event featured solar and electric vehicles on display from 3 local universities, all sponsored by Bay Area Circuits, including: CalSol’s solar vehicle from UC Berkeley, UCD Formula Racing’s electric vehicle from UC Davis, and Spartan Racing’s electric vehicle from San Jose State. The vehicles are designed and manufactured by the student teams...

October 11, 2016
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“Last Friday, Fremont celebrated National Manufacturing Day by inviting students and jobseekers to attend 11 manufacturing facility tours across the City. We sat down with Stephen Garcia, President, Bay Area Circuits, a printed circuit board manufacturer, to debrief on the day …

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