Flexible printed circuit boards, also called Flexible PCBs or Flex PCBs, derive their name for their ability to enable the circuitry to be designed to fit the electronic device or product, as opposed to building the device to conform to the circuit board. Flex boards are characterized by a distinctly patterned printed circuitry and component arrangement highlighted by a malleable base material. Wh...

What Is Copper Based PCB? Copper-based PCB or copper core PCB is a metal core PCB that uses copper as the base material in place of commonly used FR4. Like all metal core PCBs, it also has three main layers. The top layer is made of copper, which is responsible for the electrical connection between the components. This layer is standard in all types of PCBs. The second layer is the dielectric laye...

An aluminum PCB has a similar layout to any other PCB. It has a layer or layers of copper, solder mask and silkscreen layered over it. Instead of having a fiberglass or plastic substrate, though, an aluminum circuit board has a metal substrate. This base mainly contains a combination of aluminum. The metal core can consist entirely of metal or have a combination of fiberglass and aluminum. Aluminu...

A surface mount technology (SMT) stencil may also be called a PCB stentcil, solder paste stencil, or laser stencil. An SMT Stencil’s main purpose is to simply transfer the solder paste to a bare circuit board. A stainless steel foil is laser cut to create an opening for each surface mount device on the board. Once the printed circuit board (PCB) stencil is properly aligned with the top of the boar...