How to win your orders and clients

WDF-PCB-M-31,4 layer,wonderfulpcb.com

People who order PCB and PCBA from you are in different ways and different needs. So do how you know your client? Do you know what kind of clients they are and can you make a high quote to your clients?

Firstly, you should learn to know your customers. You’d better make a category. There are several kinds of customers. One is the factory which need your boards to make electronic products. This kind of clients are good for you. Because they are indeed asking for your products. Sometimes , if the customers are from rich country, such as Europe countries and USA, then you are lucky, you can quote for a higher price because they are care more about the quality and leadtime. The other one is a distributor who is care more about the money. Everytime they make a inquiry, then they would bargain with you to get a lower price. So these clients are hard to treat well. So we need more tips to fight against them. We may quote a higher price at first and give ourselves some room to reduce the price.

Before we make a quotation to our clients, we ‘d better make a survey on our clients. We can learn more about our clients if they have a factory and what products are they produced, how many pcb they would need in a year and the most important thing is which country are they from. We need to know the situation of the country in this competitive world. In other word, we should deeply know how is our clients.

I think if one can make some analyses before we make a quotation to our clients. We can hold our own advantage and make a good relationship with our clients. There is a proverb saying so: Opportunities will always be people who are prepared.

PCB drilling

Holes through a PCB are typically drilled with small-diameter drill bits made of solid coated tungsten carbide. Coated tungsten carbide is recommended since many board materials are very abrasive and drilling must be high RPM and high feed to be cost effective. Drill bits must also remain sharp so as not to mar or tear the traces. Drilling with high-speed-steel is simply not feasible since the drill bits will dull quickly and thus tear the copper and ruin the boards. The drilling is performed by automated drilling machines with placement controlled by a drill tape or drill file. These computer-generated files are also called numerically controlled drill (NCD) files or "Excellon files". The drill file describes the location and size of each drilled hole.

Holes may be made conductive, by electroplating or inserting metal eyelets (hollow), to electrically and thermally connect board layers. Some conductive holes are intended for the insertion of through-hole-component leads. Others, typically smaller and used to connect board layers, are called vias.

When very small vias are required, drilling with mechanical bits is costly because of high rates of wear and breakage. In this case, the vias may be laser drilled—evaporated by lasers. Laser-drilled vias typically have an inferior surface finish inside the hole. These holes are called micro vias.

It is also possible with controlled-depth drilling, laser drilling, or by pre-drilling the individual sheets of the PCB before lamination, to produce holes that connect only some of the copper layers, rather than passing through the entire board. These holes are called blind vias when they connect an internal copper layer to an outer layer, or buried vias when they connect two or more internal copper layers and no outer layers.

The hole walls for boards with two or more layers can be made conductive and then electroplated with copper to form plated-through holes. These holes electrically connect the conducting layers of the PCB. For multi-layer boards, those with three layers or more, drilling typically produces a smear of the high temperature decomposition products of bonding agent in the laminate system. Before the holes can be plated through, this smear must be removed by a chemical de-smear process, or by plasma-etch. The de-smear process ensures that a good connection is made to the copper layers when the hole is plated through. On high reliability boards a process called etch-back is performed chemically with a potassium permanganate based etchant or plasma. The etch-back removes resin and the glass fibers so that the copper layers extend into the hole and as the hole is plated become integral with the deposited copper.

If you need expert PCB services, feel free to contact us at wonderful02@wonderfulpcb.com

Some points should be noticed for etching

Reduce erosion and protrusion along the side to improve the etching factor. Produce sudden lateral erosion along. Printed in the etching solution is usually longer, (or use the old vacillating etching) the more serious side etch. Lateral erosion seriously affect the accuracy of printed conductors, would severely undercut the production of fine wires become impossible. When the lateral erosion and sudden decreases along the etching coefficient is increased, a high etching coefficient indicates the ability to maintain the thin wire, so close to the wire after etching artwork size. Plating etching resist either tin - lead alloy, tin, tin - nickel alloy or nickel, can cause sudden excessive wire along a short circuit. Because projecting along easily broken down, between two points of an electrical wire bridge.

Board and the board to improve the consistency between the etch rate. Board in a continuous etching, the etching rate is more consistent, more uniform etching of the board can be obtained. To meet this requirement, must ensure that the etching solution in the whole process of etching remain etched in the best condition. This requires selection easy to regenerate and compensation, the etching rate of the etching solution is easy to control. Used to provide constant operating conditions and parameters of the various solutions can be automatically controlled processes and equipment. By controlling the amount of dissolved copper, PH value of the solution concentration, temperature, solution flow rate uniformity (spray nozzle and a nozzle system or swing) or the like.

Improve the safe handling and etching thin copper foil and the ability of the etching thin laminate multilayer thin laminate inner layer so when the board is easy to wound on rollers and transfer wheel and cause waste. Therefore, the etching of the inner plate device must guarantee smooth, reliably handle a thin laminate. Many equipment manufacturers in the etching machine gears or rollers attached to prevent the occurrence of such phenomena. A better approach is to use an additional Teflon coated vacillating envelope sent as a thin plate supports. For thin foil (e.g., 1/2 or 1/4 ounce) etching, must guarantee not to be scratched or scratched. Stand like a thin copper foil etching 1 ounce copper on the mechanical drawbacks, sometimes more intense vibrations are likely to scratch the foil. 

For more details and technical supports, please feel free to contact us.

What are Aluminum PCBs

Also known as metal base PCBs, aluminum based PCBs comprise metal based laminates that are covered by copper foil circuit layers. They are constructed utilizing alloy plates, which consist of a combination of Aluminum, Magnesium, and Silumin (Al-Mg-Si). These PCBs are known for their beneficial features such as electrical insulation, good thermal potential, and high machining performance.

Aluminum PCBs differ slightly from general PCBs. The structure of this PCB comprises:

Ø Base Layer: This layer consists of an aluminum alloy substrate. The use of aluminum makes this PCB an excellent choice for PTH technology. Holes can be cut, punched, or drilled to the requisite sizes.

Ø Insulation Layer: While the base layer is certainly important, the thermal insulation layer is a critical component of this PCB. It consists of a special ceramic polymer, which has excellent viscoelastic properties and thermal resistance. The insulation layer also protects the PCB from thermal and mechanical stresses.

Ø Circuit Layer: This layer comprises the copper foil mentioned earlier. Generally, PCB manufacturers utilize thick copper foils, which can range from 1oz to 10oz.

There are certain materials and processes that can be used to augment the performance of the PCB. These include gold plated HAL, lead free RoHS assembly processes, immersion gold silkscreen, and OSP anti-oxidation processes.

While aluminum PCBs consist of the same width and thickness as FR4 PCBs, the alloy plate allows the PCB to increase its conductivity to 2.0. Also, it can carry higher currents and withstand up to 4,500 volts of electricity.

If you need expert PCB assembly service, feel free to contact wonderful02@wonderfulpcb.com. 

PCBA Industry News

1.Drilling and electroplating
If production is a multilayer PCB, and containing buried hole or blind hole, each layer board must be bored with first plating before bonding. If you don't pass this step, then can't connect each other.
After by machine equipment according to the requirements of drilling borehole Kong Bi inside must go Through electroplating (Plated Through Hole technology, Plated - Through - Hole technology, PTH).After Kong Bi internal make metal processing, can make the internal lines of each layer can be connected to each other. Before starting the electroplating, must first clear hole of sundry. This is because the resin epoxy compound after heating will produce some chemical change, and it can cover internal PCB layer, so need to clear out. Remove and electroplating movements will be completed in the chemical process.

2. Multilayer PCB pressing
each single layer must be pressing to make sandwich plate. Pressing action including adding insulation between the layers, and fastened to each other. If there is through several layers of guide hole, then each layer must be repeated. A multilayer wiring on the outside of the two sides, is often only after a multilayer pressing processing.

3. Treatment resistance welding layer, surface screen printing and gold finger plating
Next resistance welding paint coverage on the outermost wiring, so the wiring will not come into contact with the outside plating parts. Screen printing surface is printed on it, to mark the location of the various parts, it will not be able to cover at any wiring or gold finger, otherwise may reduce solder ability or the stability of the current connection. Gold finger parts usually gold plating, which, when inserted into the expansion slot to ensure high quality of the current connection.

4. Test
to test whether there is a short circuit or open rigid PCB can use optical or electronic means testing. Optical methods using scanning to find out the defects of each layer, electronic testing is usually with fly needle detector (Flying Probe) to check all the connections. Electronic testing in search of short circuit or open circuit is precise, but the optical test cans more easily detected incorrect gaps between the conductors.

Lead Time of PCB Assembly

Before a new electronic product can get accepted on the market, there are many things need to do. First of all, you should have a new correct design. How to know whether your design is correct and perfect without any problem? Be careful on the below steps, you’re probably going to need them in the near future.

To verify your PCB design, engineers usually will find some companies to make some PCB prototypes. For example, if you PCB is a double-sided PCB, it will spend about 5-7 days for a real PCB manufacturer. But you just get a bare PCB, without any components on it. So how could it verify the design? The answer is not. It can’t check the problems in your design. You need to have a complete board with all necessary parts on it.

You may think, offer you the bill of materials, the manufacturer can buy them for you. Yes, it usually works if they do have a professional purchase department. If not, you are going to buy all the components by yourself. It sounds crazy trouble. Yes it is. So usually the designer wants PCB and components assembly. It takes long time to have all the components, because some integrated circuits will need import from overseas. It does need a lot of time, usually 3 weeks. So the lead time of PCB assembly will be probably the lead time of all components? Nope, you should never forget the time for assembly. It won’t last one week if the BOM list it not so complicated.

Now you’ll know the whole lead time for PCB assembly. It really depends on the components source of your purchase department. They fast, lead time short. Otherwise, they slow, lead time long.

So if you are considering making a PCB prototype and assembly, think about the lead time. Prepare enough time in your time schedule for it, figure out a testing method for it when you have it. Most important thing is that it may need several times for prototyping. You will find problems in your design from each prototype. It takes money. Now go getting all the potential costs approved by your accounts in advance.

When it is time for finding a manufacturer, consider manufacturers in Shenzhen, China. They have done offering these kinds of services professionally for years. You want some good companies to be recommended? WONDERFUL PCB LIMITED is not a bad choice.

If you need expert PCB assembly service, feel free to contact wonderful02@wonderfulpcb.com.

PCB Industry

At present, Chinese production of electronic circuits, and printed circuit industry sales accounted for 44 percent of the global total; China printed circuit board equipment, raw materials, sales and production also remain the world's first. Despite the good momentum of development, many exhibitors participating CPCASHOW has said that due to the recent influx of a large number of PCB industry areas, capacity expansion is serious, resulting in a vicious competition intensified. In addition, the continued growth of smart terminals and emerging markets, driven by significantly increasing the demand for HDI, FPC, etc., but also stimulate the industry investment to expand plant expansion, further intensified price competition.

I found that many domestic exhibitors showcasing high-order HDI, IC, buried blind PCB, FPC, high-end products, such as multi-layer FPC, PCB manufacturers have indicated that many domestic with international advanced manufacturing PCB comparable.

Production capacity expansion, high degree of product homogeneity, leading PCB price pressures. Price war intensified, most industry struggling to cope.

How to deal with a price war? I found a positive innovation in the field show exhibitors are booming popularity. Visible on the product technology upgrades, technological innovation will help blaze a new trail in the price war. In addition, to improve product competitiveness, increase product functionality and value, so that enterprises break free from the mire of product homogeneity, but also to important initiatives.

When it is time for finding a manufacturer, consider manufacturers in Shenzhen, China. They have done offering these kinds of services professionally for years. You want some good companies to be recommended? WONDERFUL PCB LIMITED is not a bad choice.

If you need expert PCB assembly service, feel free to contact wonderful02@wonderfulpcb.com.