Understanding the Relationship Between PCB Prototype

Whether you are sewing clothes, cooking food, or building circuit boards, you are going to go through a trial phase that will eventually lead to the final result. A tailor will try a partially completed outfit on its recipient to check its fit before the sewing is finished, and who hasn’t been asked by their grandmother if the stew cooking on the stove needed more salt? It is the same when we have our circuit boards built by a contract manufacturer (CM). Before we commit to having a regular production run of the boards built, we will get a prototype of the board to test and evaluate first.Get more news about Pcb Prototype,you can vist our website!

Prototyping is critical to the success of PCB design. Design engineers need to get hardware into their hands quickly in order to test and debug their designs, or to try design alternatives to improve the performance of the board. Prototyping differs quite a bit from regular high-volume production runs of the same board which is focused on the need to reliably produce a large amount of boards without any defects. Let’s take a moment to examine these differences in closer detail, and see how designers and manufacturers can better work together to improve the PCB prototype and assembly process.

Understanding PCB Prototype and Assembly Although both PCB prototyping and regular high-volume production runs will both result in an assembled printed circuit board, there are some differences between the two processes. Where a regular production run is a fixed process to ensure the reliable manufacturing of a large batch of circuit boards, the goal of producing a PCB prototype is flexibility in order for a small number of boards to be assembled quickly. This way the design engineers can begin their processes of test and debug, as well as looking for ways to improve the performance and quality of the design as soon as possible.

Flexibility is the key to the PCB prototyping process. Prototype boards are usually a work in process, and the production process must be nimble enough to allow for modifications to the board in order to accommodate design changes as they come in. Here are some examples of how prototype manufacturers will stay flexible:

Using leaded soldering processes instead of specific non-leaded soldering chemistry for restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) compliancy. Although the boards will need to be RoHS compliant when they are in regular production, this isn’t a requirement for the prototype. Not all of the components need to be included in the assembly depending on the needs and purpose of the prototype. Instead of the fine-pitch components that will be used for regular production, wider parts can be used to help with test and debug. Prototype boards can also include specific options for test and debug that production boards wouldn’t need. These could include additional connectors, sockets for IC’s, and test probe posts. PCB documentation will be changing as the needs of the prototype change; however, for minor changes or adjustments full documentation may not be necessary. This is especially true for assembly as some changes do not require change orders. For example, modifications that will be reset for the final prototype. Another way that CMs can be flexible with their prototype builds is to relax their design while remaining within manufacturability standards. Although these are a must for regular production runs, many DFM issues can be corrected through a manual assembly and rework processes. Again, the whole goal is to get the prototype board build quickly and back into the hands of the design engineer. Assembling PCBs for a regular high-volume run is very different though.