Manufacturing Walkthrough
Prerequisites:
- Design review approval
- Collection of manufacturing files (Gerbers, Centroids, BOM, Specifications)
Tools:
- Email & Phone
- Translator
- FTP client
Next Step:
This is less of a stage and more of a description of the process your design files go through to become a physical piece of hardware. Treat it as informative only, and feel free to skip it over.
The manufacturing of Printed Circuit Boards is still predominantly an imperfect photochemical process. The following are the stages by which copper foil, fiberglass, and epoxy are combined to become the PCB we all know and love.
TODO
- Copper foil is treated and exposed to UV light to control which parts of the copper get etched, and which doesn’t.
- Multiple layers are etched separately and then laminated together.
The assembly of Printed Circuit Assemblies is still largely a manual human process. The following are the stages by which a bare PCB and a collection of components are soldered together to become the PCA at the core of most modern devices.
TODO
- loading reels into pick-and-place machines
- setting reflow oven temperature patterns
- loading through hole parts into their holes prior to wave soldering
- full on part-by-part manual assembly of smaller boards.
Once your PCAs are finished you can move on to testing them, or spot-checking batches before they get installed in an enclosure and shipped to your customers.