•In this section, we will look at some of the equipment that is used in modern PCB production.
Each development stage is carried out by a dedicated piece of equipment – which may form part of an assembly line.
Depending on your application, note that some stages may be missing here. For instance, a tinning stage is often included after etching to reduce copper layer oxidation. A multi-layer PCB, too, requires a lamination stage to join the layers.
A multi-stage plate-through hole setup from Mega Electronic
A raster plotter from Mega Electronics serves as a replacement to the photoplotter described earlier. This plotter is capable of creating a 5 micron spot.
A laminator is used to apply the photoresist layer to the PCB. This laminator is from Mega Electronics.
UV units used to expose the photoresist on a PCB.
There are many different sorts of etching, developing, and stripping setups. This one is from Mega Electronics and is a unit that sprays the chemicals over board panels, mounted inside.
Again from Mega Electronics, units such as this “Production Line” can be used to combine the chemical stages into a convenient unit. The operator is responsible for forwarding the PCB through the stages.
Etch-resist, solder masks, parts placement silkscreen legends, and even solder paste can applied to a PCB using silkscreen printing technology.
