Brief History of PCBs
The history of PCBs dates back from the late 19th century, few years after the concept of an integrated circuit was developed. In the earlier times, the size of the components and that made the devises look giant and massive. The technology of embedded circuit was a revolution in the engineering world, where the electronic engineers devised a method to integrate more components into a single chip. Thus the design and manufacturing of integrated circuits (IC) got great prominence and foster since then. However, every single IC was specially made for a single purpose and achieving multiple purposes was beyond the scope of the IC alone. Here was the time when the need of circuit board was felt when multiple ICs and other components like transistors, capacitors and resistors can be embedded together to perform multiple operations. Calculators can be taken as the example of earlier PCBs which has the capability of performing multiple functions of addition, subtraction, division, multiplication and other arithmetic functions. Now if we ponder on the modern devises it can be observed that calculator is one of the simplest of all engineering devices and there have been great technological advancement in both the level of technological devises and gadgets and complexity of the PCBs.
The first PCBs were made from materials like Bakelite, Masonite and a wooden wafer (board) was used to serve as the base of the circuitry. For making the conducting path for the current, flat brass wires was first bolted into the board after drilling holes into it. The brass wire ends were then pressed and joined with the component legs so that direct connectivity can be established between the connected components. The level of accuracy was however degraded but this method worked nicely for nearly three decades when Bakelite material and brass wires were replaced by copper boards. Comparing it with the modern PCBs, earlier PCBs were not multi-layered. The design of double-layered was also introduced in the late 1980’s, and before that only single sided fabrication was done. In single sided or single-layered PCB fabrication, components are mounted on one side of the board and there is only one side of the board can conduct current. The other side is non-conducting and therefore components cannot be mounted on the other side.
The technology of surface mount gave a great technological edge to the PCBs and more components can be embedded in lesser space. Earlier the manual drilling and plating technology was used to mount the circuit components. Due to this technology, the size area of the board could not be reduced as it was dependent on the number of components. Furthermore, drilling technology does not allowed double-layered or multi-layered fabrication in the earlier PCBs. Advent of the surface mount technology liberated the dependency of the board width and length o the number of components and allowed fabrication of more dense and complicated circuit designs into a single PCB.
The first PCBs were made from materials like Bakelite, Masonite and a wooden wafer (board) was used to serve as the base of the circuitry. For making the conducting path for the current, flat brass wires was first bolted into the board after drilling holes into it. The brass wire ends were then pressed and joined with the component legs so that direct connectivity can be established between the connected components. The level of accuracy was however degraded but this method worked nicely for nearly three decades when Bakelite material and brass wires were replaced by copper boards. Comparing it with the modern PCBs, earlier PCBs were not multi-layered. The design of double-layered was also introduced in the late 1980’s, and before that only single sided fabrication was done. In single sided or single-layered PCB fabrication, components are mounted on one side of the board and there is only one side of the board can conduct current. The other side is non-conducting and therefore components cannot be mounted on the other side.
The technology of surface mount gave a great technological edge to the PCBs and more components can be embedded in lesser space. Earlier the manual drilling and plating technology was used to mount the circuit components. Due to this technology, the size area of the board could not be reduced as it was dependent on the number of components. Furthermore, drilling technology does not allowed double-layered or multi-layered fabrication in the earlier PCBs. Advent of the surface mount technology liberated the dependency of the board width and length o the number of components and allowed fabrication of more dense and complicated circuit designs into a single PCB.