Changing trends in PCB assembly manufacturing!

Gone are the days when electronic devices used to be bulky. With the coming of printed electronic circuit boards, it has been possible to create electronic devices, which are much compact and far more efficient as compared to earlier times.

However, the technologies used for printed circuit board manufacturing have also evolved a lot over these years. Let us have a look at how things have changed over the years –

1.

The earlier times – the first printed circuit boards were nothing else but flat foil conductors that were laminated over an insulating board. Albert Hanson, a German inventor, is credited with the discovery of these circuit boards in the year 1903. Thomas Edison also tried his hands on manufacturing circuit boards, and came forward with a method in 1904 that used electroplating techniques. However, in the year 1913, Arthur Berry from the Great Britain got the patent for a print-and-etch motion technology used for the manufacturing of these boards

2.

Late in the 50’s – with time things evolved gradually, and thru the hole technology came into picture. This method of PCB board assembly manufacturing made use of drilling holes in the boards. The leads of the equipment are passed through these holes, and soldered onto the board. These were effectively used in the second generation of computers. Though the boards manufactured by this technique proved to be little costly because of added cost of drilling, but because of the ease of manufacturing, this technology was widely accepted.

3.

In the 80’s – although in 1960’s there was rise of surface mount technology for PCB creation, but it was not until late 1980’s and mid 90’s that this technique gained momentum. One step ahead of the thru-hole technology, boards manufactured using this method were much more efficient as the equipment to be used were directly mounted on the surface of the boards. This made available much larger surface area as compared to the previous methods. Therefore the boards became much smaller, and their circuit efficiency became much larger. These were also cheaper priced as compared to the previous counterparts.

All the above mentioned information clearly reflects the changes that technology has brought in the field of PCB manufacturing, and the change has not stopped yet. There are still researches going on for developing better and more efficient methods that can take the circuit boards to an altogether different level.