26 commonly used professional terms in the PCBA processing industry, how many do you know?

Here are 26 commonly used PCB professional terms

1. Annular ring

The copper ring around the plated through hole in the PCB.

2. DRC

Design rule check. Software check of the design to ensure that the design does not contain errors, such as improper trace contact, traces that are too thin, or drill holes that are too small.

3. Drill hit

The location where holes should be drilled in the design, or where they actually drill holes in the circuit board. Inaccurate drill hits caused by blunt drill bits are a common manufacturing problem.

4. Gold finger

Exposed metal pads along the edge of the circuit board used to make a connection between two circuit boards.

Common examples are computer expansion boards or memory boards and the edges of older cartridge-based video games.

5. Stamp hole

Stamp hole is an alternative to v-score used to separate the board from the panel. Many drill holes are concentrated together, forming a weak point that can easily break the board afterwards.

6. Pads

Exposed metal portion of a circuit board surface to which components are soldered.

7. Panels

A larger circuit board that is made up of many smaller boards that are broken apart before use.

Automated circuit board handling equipment often has problems handling smaller boards, and by bringing multiple boards together at once, processing can be significantly accelerated.

8. Paste stencils

A thin metal (sometimes plastic) stencil located on a circuit board that allows solder paste to be deposited in specific areas during assembly.

9. Pick and place

A machine or process that places components on a circuit board.

10. Planes

A continuous block of copper on a circuit board that is defined by boundaries rather than paths, also commonly referred to as a "pour".

11. Plated through-holes

A hole on a circuit board that has an annular ring and is plated all the way through the board. It may be a connection point for a through-hole component, a via for a signal to pass through, or a mounting hole.

A PTH resistor inserted into a PCB, ready for soldering. The legs of the resistor pass through the hole. Plated holes can have traces connected to them on the front side of the PCB and on the back side of the PCB.

12. Spring-loaded contacts

Spring-loaded contacts used to make temporary connections for testing or programming purposes.

13. Reflow soldering

Melting solder to form joints between pads and component leads.

14. Silkscreen printing

Letters, numbers, symbols, and images on circuit boards. Usually only one color is available, and the resolution is usually low.

15. Slots

Any non-circular hole in a board, a slot may or may not be plated. Slots sometimes increase the cost of the board because they require extra cutting time.

Note: The corners of the slots cannot be made perfectly square because they are cut with a circular milling cutter.

16. Solder paste

Small balls of solder suspended in a gel medium that are applied to surface mount pads on a PCB before placing components with the help of a solder paste stencil.

During reflow soldering, the solder in the solder paste melts, forming an electrical and mechanical joint between the pad and the component.

17. Solder paste

Paste used for quick hand soldering of circuit boards with through-hole components. Usually contains a small amount of molten solder into which the board is quickly dipped, leaving solder joints on all exposed pads.

18. Solder Mask

A protective layer of material covering metal to prevent shorts, corrosion, and other problems. Usually green, but other colors (SparkFun red, Arduino blue, or Apple black) are possible. Sometimes called "resist".

19. Solder Jumper

A small blob of solder that connects two adjacent pins on a component on a circuit board. Depending on the design, a solder jumper can be used to connect two pads or pins together. It can also cause unwanted shorts.

20. Surface Mount

A construction method that allows components to be simply mounted on a board without requiring leads to pass through holes in the board. This is the main assembly method used today and allows for quick and easy assembly of circuit boards.

21. Heat Sinking Vias

A small trace used to connect a pad to a plane. If the pad is not dissipating heat, it is difficult to get the pad to a high enough temperature to form a good solder joint. Pads that are not properly heatsinked will feel "sticky" when you try to solder, and will take an unusually long time to reflow.

22. Thieving

Hatched lines, grid lines, or dots of copper are left in areas of the board that are free of planes or traces. Reduces etching difficulty because less time is required to remove unwanted copper in the grooves.

23. Trace

A continuous path of copper on a board.

24. V-cut

A cut through a portion of a board so that the board can be easily broken along a line.

25. Via

A hole in a circuit board used to pass signals from one layer to another. Tented vias are covered with solder mask to prevent them from being soldered to. Vias to connect connectors and components are usually left uncovered (uncovered) so they can be easily soldered.

26. Wave Soldering

A soldering method for boards with through-hole components in which the board is passed through a standing wave of molten solder, which adheres to exposed pads and component leads.