PCB Design Services - Printed Circuit Board Designer

As you may know, PCBs are the cornerstone of modern electronics. Their conductive pathways and components support, connect, and facilitate many of the key capabilities of your electronic devices.

As a leading PCBA manufacturer, we understand the importance of PCBs as the cornerstone of modern electronics. That’s why we are committed to delivering high-quality and state-of-the-art PCBA services, ensuring the highest quality and reliability to meet your needs.

Key Elements of PCB Design

The key elements of PCB design include:

Schematic Capture

Schematic capture (AKA schematic entry) involves converting a physically drawn design into a digital one. Traditionally, a draftsman or designer would sketch or print their design schematics to sheets of paper. These schematics usually map out the component placement, layout, circuitry and bus connections of the PCB.

Because the modern PCB manufacturing process is largely computer-aided, it’s best to convert old sheet schematics into more manageable electronic ones. Alternatively, you can digitally create your designs from the start as digital schematic designs are easier to manipulate, edit, and process.

OurPCB supports both schematic capture and design. We support and use a plethora of popular design software solutions including Alttium Designer, KiCad, and Eagle. This makes it easier for us to craft and build high quality designs and deliver them to you quickly.

PCB Layout

The board’s schematics only tells one part of the story. While it dictates crucial layout and component placement parameters, there are other guidelines and rules PCB designs must adhere to. This includes board thickness, the PCB stackup, outline, trace widths, slot widths, drill size increments, etc.

These rules and guidelines will also affect component placement and connectivity. For instance, high-density PCB layouts make it more difficult to place components directly next to each other. Consequently, PCB designers must find other ways to optimize the placement of PCB components so that they can still produce strong connections.

Designers can achieve this by creating functional partitions, marking power areas, and organizing components by type (RF, analog, digital, etc). This all requires an ample pre-layout and flooring plan.

Additionally, you can’t afford to underestimate the importance of routing. Manufacturers and designers must avoid choking their bus and escape routing channels by not providing enough space in internal areas. Many of the vias used for routing can also impede signal return paths. This can negatively impact the performance of the PCB.

Design for Manufacturing (DFM)

Creating a world-class design is meaningless if manufacturers can’t assemble or fabricate it. What works in theory may not work in the real world.

It isn’t just a matter of practicality, either. Your design may not be financially feasible to manufacture. If you want to design for manufacturing, you should first consider your PCB’s material requirements.

You and/or your selected PCB design service should estimate and identify these requirements during the initial phases of the design process. For instance, you must consider how much copper (in relation to traces), silkscreen, and lamination material the fabrication process will require.

It’s important to keep the fabrication limits in mind too. Hence the significance of the layer stackup. It will help you define realistic spacing and size expectations for your PCB assembly.

Testing and Iteration

Most modern design software can help you run circuit simulations. However, this may not be enough. Thus, in addition to this capability, PCB designers and manufacturers should offer prototyping services.

This provides you with a sample of the PCB that you can test in the real world. We can then use the outcomes produced from testing your prototype to revise and refine your design.

Testing and iteration are important as they help you identify flaws early in the PCB assembly process. They can help you improve your design, find faults and prevent recalls.

Why Does Professional PCB Design Matter?

While you can use CAD software to draft designs yourself, professional PCB design services matter because they can help you ensure: