Specifying Laminates

If you send a design to be manufactured (to a "UL-approved" fabricator) with no materials specified at all, you should still receive an acceptable board for most applications. In other words, even without drawings or notes or instructions, and in the absence of any specific requirements, the fabricat...

Circuit Board Materials

Circuit boards are made with copper conductors separated by insulating materials which are typically resin systems with a reinforcement material to add strength and stability. The most prevalent materials are FR-4 Epoxy systems (which means Flame Retardent) reinforced with layers of woven glass cloth...

Solder Mask Layers and Solder Paste Layers

If you’ve ever seen a PCB you are no doubt familiar with their oddly green coloring. This thin green protective covering on the top and bottom of a PCB is called the solder mask and it helps protect traces from shorting when debris is present on your PCB. Not every board includes a a solder mask ...

Split Planes and Overlay (Silkscreen) Layers

Power and ground planes can be modified such that they contain multiple copper sections connected to different potentials. These further enhance the convenience of planes – consider a plane that has multiple voltages on it distributing +5V to one section of your board and -5V to another section. ...

Routing Layers and Ground Planes & Power Planes

Routing layers are used for component interconnects. These are the layers that designers spend the majority of their time perfecting. Routing layers can be located on both outer (referred to as top and bottom layers) and internal layers on your PCB. These layers must be provided to your fabricator...

Mechanical Layer and Keep Out Layer

You may have multiple mechanical layers, but you will need at least one to fabricate your board. The most basic mechanical layer (sometimes referred to as Mechanical 1) outlines the physical dimensions of your board. This is depicted by the pink outline in the image above. The fabricator will use ...

PCB Layers Overview

Printed circuit boards can be as simple as a single routing layer with a mechanical layer defining the physical dimensions of your board or as complicated as a multilayer board with all the layers outlined in this article. However, when considered individually, each layer has a very specific and sim...

Definition of Flexible LED Circuit Board

One of the fastest growing markets in the PCB industry is LED PCBs. Most commonly, these involve a single layer of circuitry bonded to a metal substrate (most typically aluminum or copper) by a thermally conductive heatsink. While this technology is great for planar applications, it does not bode wel...

Make Your Own Bright LED Light Bulb

To make your own LED light bulb, you will need a soldering iron and some solder, some LEDs and a pre-drilled circuit board. You will also need an old, burnt out incandescent light bulb. To make a LED light bulb for about three dollars, look online for bulk LEDs. You can find them out of China now for...

How to Design a Simple LED Circuit

A simple light-emitting diode circuit is an excellent first project in electronics, as it illustrates the use of electrical current and gives you practical experience handling components. The circuit uses a switch to control a 20-milliamp current, turning a light-emitting diode on and off. The LED is...