Printed Circuit Boards - IPC Netlist Comparison

Most PCB design software have the ability to export out not only Gerber data for fabrication, but also Netlist information. This Netlist is exported out in the popular IPC-365-A format.

Through our years of experience, we highly recommend asking your board-shop if they have the ability to compare your Gerber data with an IPC Netlist. This comparison ensures that the Gerber data matches the Netlist in your CAD software, avoiding any surprises that may have been caused through export issues or import issues from the fabrication shops CAM software. In the end, this provides an excellent reliability check so that corrections can be made and precious time is not wasted in extra design revisions.

Electronic Interconnect offers full IPC-365-A Netlist comparison support. For more information on PCB design visit our website.

Related article: IPC-1601, Standard on Handling, Packaging and Storage

Stencils for Prototypes

Electronic Interconnect is now offering Prototype Stencils which we can ship along with our quality fabricated PCBs!

The new ‘Proto-Print’ is an easy-to use, quick solution to the need to print prototypes and low volume runs at the benchtop. It’s low-cost and affordable, quick to set up and provides good results when printing solder paste and other electronic materials such as mask or adhesives.
To find out more about this exciting new offer, please visit our website for more details on Proto Print Stencils.

PCB Fabrication and Controlled Impedance Stackups

Advancements in technology have driven PCB Designers & Engineers to seek improvements in system development & develop strategies to overcome signal communication issues.

If your electronics design requires specific impedance properties, for example a differential impedance of 90 ohms, & you need to design the PCB which can meet this criteria, then you'll need to research & calculate the best trace-width, trace-space, layer-to-layer spacing, as well as which PCB materials should be used. Keep in mind that there are certain tolerances encountered at each stage during PCB fabrication: the trace etching tolerances, the material thickness tolerances, as well as the copper finish tolerances.

Read more at http://www.eiconnect.com/techarticle_detail.aspx?b=10

LED Design On Metal-Core PCBs

We have all recently seen a recent boom in the lighting industry; LEDs are indeed illuminating the future. As you consider converting existing engineering designs, metal-core PCBs have the answer to manage the LEDs intense heat-output problems.

Contact us at design@eiconnect.com if youre interested in up-converting your single-sided FR-4 designs to Metal-Core based boards, or if youd like to start from scratch using this material.
Visit our website at www.eiconnect.com for PCB Fabrication & Ordering information.

PCB Arrays & Panels

The terms Array and Panel have been used interchangeably by various sectors. The PCB Fabrication industry normally uses the term Array to mean a pallet which contains multiple copies of the same circuit board.

At Electronic Interconnect, we design Arrays daily to meet the best yields of our PCB fabrication processes, and to meet the requirements of our customers. We can design with V-Scoring parameters, CNC Routing parameters, as well as a combination of both of these processes. By engineering PCB Arrays at our location, we are able to not only pass on the savings to our customers, but we also use our years of experience to design Arrays to result in trouble-free Assembly after fabrication! For more info please visit http://www.eiconnect.com

WiFi and PCBs with IEEE 802.11 b/g/n chips

As technology progresses, more and more devices are centralizing toward wireless integration. There are various WiFi chips available that enable devices to communicate with Local Area Networks.

RF Transceivers such as Zig-Bee devices www.zigbee.org are one answer, but designs are also available in IEEE 802.11 b/g/n standards. If  you are in the market for such products, read more here http://www.eiconnect.com/techarticle_detail.aspx?b=1

Flexible PCBs

Flexible PCBs are relied upon for their physical ability to contract & expand for specialized products. These types of thin PCBs are used in a variety of products, such as automotive instrument panels, computer disk drives, medical controls, and telecommunication systems. Electronic Interconnect manufactures Flex & Rigid-Flex PCBs through our ISO compliant processes; for more information please visit http://www.eiconnect.com/techarticle_detail.aspx?b=4