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Electrical & Electronics Engineering vocabulary · PCB Design and Manufacturing

PCB

Meaning in electrical & electronics engineering, with examples

/ˌpi si ˈbi/abbreviationCore term

In electrical & electronics engineering, PCB means: Short for printed circuit board: a flat board of insulating material with copper tracks that hold electronic components and connect them to each other.

In Turkish: baskı devre kartı, baskı devre, devre kartı

How it is used

Pronounced 'P-C-B'. Used in design and manufacturing: PCB layout, PCB design, PCB assembly (PCBA), a two-layer or four-layer PCB. You design a PCB in tools such as KiCad or Altium, send it for fabrication and then have it populated with components.

Example sentences

  1. The first batch of PCBs arrived from the factory, but two footprints are wrong.

  2. We moved to a four-layer PCB to get a solid ground plane.

Common collocations

  • PCB layout
  • PCB design
  • PCB assembly
  • multilayer PCB
  • PCB manufacturer
  • traceA copper line on a PCB that carries current or a signal between pads, working like a flat wire. British engineers often call it a track.
  • viaA small plated hole in a PCB that connects a trace or copper area on one layer to another layer.
  • footprintThe pattern of copper pads, holes and markings on a PCB that matches a component's package, so that the part can be placed and soldered correctly.
  • solderTo join metal parts, such as a component lead and a copper pad, by melting a low-temperature metal alloy between them. The alloy itself is also called solder.
  • Gerber filesThe standard set of files sent to a PCB manufacturer, with one file for each copper layer, the solder mask, the silkscreen and the board outline, usually together with a drill file.

More terms: PCB Design and Manufacturing

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