Integrated circuits, whether processors, memories or combinations thereof, are mounted on top of a printed circuit board, which has the appearance of a board where, for those who do not look at consumer hardware and electronic products, it is still a simple medium for placing tokens. But they are more than that and a fundamental part in the construction of the hardware components of our computers.
What is a printed circuit?
When we look at any motherboard or graphics card, we can see how all of its components are soldered together and neatly laid out on a surface, which we call a printed circuit board or also known by its acronym: PCB. Its usefulness is not only to have placed the various processing and memory chips, but to include the intercommunication wiring between them, which are the tracks that can be seen on its surface.
When performing prototyping, these plates are often used where the pins of each chip are placed in each of the holes and cables are used to interconnect said chip with the substrate. These types of boards are called breadboards and they are great for prototyping systems with the chips already made, but for the end product you won’t want a mess of cables, other than that you will want everything to stay. in place.
And how does a printed circuit work? They are really nothing more than a series of copper tracks or other electrically conductive element combined with layers of non-conductive material. We can have multiple layers of non-conductive material and in each of them is a group of copper tracks that serve as wiring to communicate the chips. Although these are not visible and are therefore very difficult to read.
How are they made?
Printed circuit boards can be made with a large number of different substances, although the most widely used is a compound called FR-4. Which is made of a combination of fiberglass and epoxy type resin, which stands out for its flame retardant capabilities and is the non-conductive part of the PCB and therefore the one that will not pass electricity, thus avoiding the problems of signal.
The printed circuit board also has a full layer of copper or other conductive material between the two FR-4 layers and uses chemical agents to expose the part of the copper that corresponds to the tracks. In order to adapt the pins of the different chips and electronic components for their placement, holes of a certain diameter are made which will allow the different chips to be connected for subsequent soldering of each of the parts. In the event that a socket is used, it will be the one which will be soldered directly to the Printed Circuit.
In the case of multi-layered designs, each layer should be much thinner than a single-layered model and as they increase in number their thickness should decrease. Thermal methods are generally used to assemble them, but they have their problems, as they make the fabrication of the baseplates more sensitive. This way of working too
How are they designed?
To design them today, they are used
Once we have seen that the circuit works in the simulation, there are two options:
- On the one hand, you can hire a company specializing in its construction to manufacture a few versions of your design. So you don’t need to have the necessary materials at home to do it and you can use your time for other tasks or for your free time, but you will have to wait to have them ready.
- The other option is to create your own PCB from home, we have a full tutorial on it in case you are interested and want to know how to do it.
For fans of computer-centric electronics, designing and creating circuit boards is just one more part of their design process, whether it’s creating projects from scratch or even restoring a old system in which, due to the poor condition of the components, none more function correctly.
Is it worth making my own PCBs?
This is a question that some of you will be asking yourself while reading this article and from the point of view of the author of this article I would tell you that it is worth it and that it is very much soul searching. rewarding and that it is essential if you are looking to restore old systems. Additionally, if you are building your own solutions consisting of a combination of FPGAs, CPLDs, and other components, both amateur and professional level, you will need your own PCB.
Unfortunately, today, many contemporary products use multitrack circuit boards where it is almost impossible to reverse engineer by examining one of these boards and creating a replica, but when restoring old systems or their creation of small improvements, it is possible.
Of course, it will not be used to restore very advanced hardware elements like current graphics cards, since its assembly is carried out by very high precision machines creating tracks in an extremely complex way and using multilayer PCBs.
So in the end it depends on the application you are going to give to your design, but you can always give it a commercial outlet, either with new creations or by reviving old systems. Either way, it’s part of the process of creating the new material.
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