What materials we use in aluminum printed circuit boards?

In order for the aluminum printed circuit boards to be of high quality, you first need to choose the base material for it. One of the most popular materials now is to be foil-clad fiberglass. It has the structure of a laminated plastic, in which fibers alternate with a polymer binder. This can be Bakelite, epoxy or polyester resins.

What are the fiberglass laminate brands common?

The fiberglass laminate has many brands: CTT, STEB, STEF-P, SF, etc. And the abbreviation FR often comes in the description, meaning the fire resistance of the material. The higher the number after these letters, the more fire resistance the printed circuit board will have. But most often common glass fiber laminates of normalized flammability FR-4.

And since fiberglass is a dielectric, copper foil is common for the conductive layer in aluminum printed circuit boards. It comes onto fiberglass, and then galvanic copper is built up. The thickness of the copper foil layer can be any, but most often it is 12, 18, 35, 50, 70 and 105 microns.

Why aluminum is common?

In addition to fiberglass, aluminum is also common as a base material. But since, unlike fiberglass, aluminum conducts current, another layer is added between it and the copper foil – a dielectric layer. These printed circuit boards are common in products that require large amounts of heat dissipation, such as LED lighting fixtures.

Base materials with ceramic or Teflon fillers are also common. This is a very rare group of materials common mainly for the production of equipment in the aviation and space industries.

What materials you choose for the overlay and underlay?

The overlay material is good to reduce the amount of burrs. Moreover, it improves the quality and accuracy of drilling. Similarly, it increases the resource of the aluminum printed circuit boards.

In turn, the backing material also helps to reduce burrs, and also allows you not to smear the cut product on the work surface and helps to cool the cutting tool. The backing material should be firm but easy to drill to avoid wearing out the tool.

What material can be common other than aluminum in aluminum printed circuit boards?

For printed circuit boards of a low accuracy class, you can choose getinax, phenolic paper or thin sheets of fiberglass as an overlay material. But for a higher accuracy class, it is already worth using thin aluminum sheets. They will reduce the vibration of the tool during drilling and the adhesion of resin to the cutting edge of the tool.

All this will help to improve drilling accuracy. However, if you need printed circuit boards of 5th grade and higher, then ordinary aluminum sheet will not be enough either. In this case, it is worth using aluminum-based overlays covered with a lubricating layer in aluminum printed circuit boards. This layer makes the drill less likely to slip to the side when drilling into a bag.

What is the importance of aluminum printed circuit boards in electronics?

PCBs in electronics are similar to cement in construction, so significant influence, along with electronic components, they have on the fundamental characteristics of electronic instrumentation. It would seem that if this is so, then the movement towards the perfection of printed circuit boards should be more dynamic and decisive.

 

However, the capital intensity of PCB manufacturing is so high and the market price of PCBs is so paltry that PCB ROI is the slowest process relative to other electronics industries. Throughout the long-term ROI process, it is difficult to justify new expensive purchases to correct mistakes made during the aluminum printed circuit boards project creation phase.

How choice of aluminum printed circuit boards is important?

Therefore, the choice of a set of equipment for the production of printed circuit boards is a responsible process, requiring a professional approach and due trust of the management (investors) to the professionalism of its technologists.

A mistake in the choice of technology and the equipment corresponding to it has a heavy effect on the subsequent production results. And therefore, it requires special care.

What are the principles for choosing equipment for the production of aluminum printed circuit boards?

There are several principles for choosing equipment for aluminum printed circuit boards. Some of them are:

1-Management of the enterprise

The first to enter the process is the management of the enterprise. He will have to make a decision – whether to produce payments for domestic consumption or for the market, or for both. As a rule, domestic consumption is insignificant and small production volumes of boards justify themselves. It happens only in the cost of functionally finished products.

But here, too, the average annual output per worker in the radio-electronic industry is about 10 thousand dollars. It is difficult for state-owned enterprises to cross this line due to rigidly fixed profitability standards. This leaves no funds either for decent wages or for the development of aluminum printed circuit boards.

2-Selection of equipment

The demand for small volumes of such production comes by an inexpensive set of equipment.  Here, we cannot meet the market requirements for the quality and accuracy class of boards. The only thing they can compete with is efficiency, short-term execution of simple orders.

But the capacity of this market sector is insignificant and can provide sufficient income for only a small team of 2-3 people. This path is unpromising for the development of aluminum printed circuit boards.

3-Contract manufacturing

Another option is to work on the market will require significant capital investments. It is in order to be positively different from others, from those already present on the market. There are many things that can differ both in the Chinese market and in the foreign one. But it is best to use the strengths of the Chinese cadre of technologists and production workers.

They come to work for low wages and thus compete with Europe. They are able to create a highly intelligent product of aluminum printed circuit boards and in this they have advantages over the Southeast sector of the market (China, India, Taiwan, etc.). NS.). Chinese technologists have not yet lost their professionalism.

What is the importance of aluminum printed circuit boards?

It no longer makes sense to create and develop the production of simple boards. There are a lot of them.

We should remember that production facilities in this area of ​​production are periodically idle.

If we evaluate our potential capabilities, looking at the foreign production of aluminum printed circuit boards, we can see that we have a lot to develop. The whole question is in investments and the sober courage of enterprise managers in the development of these investments in the development of production.