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Design Considerations with Heavy Copper

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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 …
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Printed Circuit Board Laminate Material Trends

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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 …
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Introduction to IPC Inspection Guidelines

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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 …
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Bare Printed Circuit Board Electrical Test

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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 …
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Solder Paste Stencil Basics

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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 …
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Introduction to Drilling and Vias

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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 …
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Advantages of the Gerber X2 Format

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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 …
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Reshoring of Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing

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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 …
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Basic PCB Design Tips & Tricks

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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 …
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5 Electronics Design Tips for Beginners

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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 …
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An Introduction to PCB Arrays

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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 …
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Countersinks and Counterbores for Printed Circuit Boards

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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 …
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An Inside Look at Manufacturing Circuit Classics PCBs

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There's no doubt that we, at Bay Area Circuits, get to work with some very talented individuals working on some pretty incredible projects. Star Simpson is one of those individuals and Circuit Classics is one of those projects! Star is bringing to life classic circuit drawings from Forrest Mims' "Getting Started in Electronics" and recently made the designs available via Crowd Supply.
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The Rebirth of Silicon Valley Hardware Manufacturing

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Are we experiencing a rebirth of Silicon Valley hardware manufacturing? High volume manufacturing of hardware is not something commonly done in Silicon Valley, with much of that work finding its way to places around the globe. But a large amount of new product development, prototyping and low volume production seems to be firmly positioned in the Valley.
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The Gerber Format; an Interview with Ucamco

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For engineers new to PCB design, the term ‘Gerber files’ will quickly become a part of their everyday vernacular. And as such, it’s a topic we’ve covered frequently and will cover again today by going straight to the source via …
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Standard Gerber Declared Obsolete

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In May 2014, Ucamco, the company that maintains Gerber specifications, released an “Open Letter to the Gerber User Community” and stated “Standard Gerber is now technologically obsolete.” Here Is Why There have been a number of important updates to the Standard …
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PCB Protection Can be Compromised by Ground Structure

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Abstract Printed Circuit Board designers sometimes place protective devices on external signals as they enter a PCB and shunt the current from these devices to a separate “noise” ground distinct from the board signal ground. An analysis is given that …
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RS274D vs RS274X Gerber file format

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Gerber File Extension For those that are not familiar with the Gerber file extension designation of rs274d vs rs274x we put together some basic information to help you understand the difference and why it is important in the PCB ordering …
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