Single & Double Sided PCB's

Single-sided pcb’s are the simplest and the cheapest type of boards, with a single layer of copper on a rigid base material, solder resist and idents can also be added. This type of PCB can be used for both through hole and surface mount components (figure 1).

Figure 1

Double sided pcb’s consist of two copper layer on a rigid base material, the two copper layers are not connected (figure 2). Double sided pcb’s with plated through holes have two copper layers that can be connected by a copper plated hole (figure 3), solder resist and idents can also be added. This type of pcb can be used for both through hole and surface mount components.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Materials

Rigid pcb’s can be made from a wide range of base materials, the standard being FR4 which is a woven fibreglass cloth impregnated with an epoxy resin. The excellent electrical, mechanical and thermal properties of FR4 have made it an excellent material for a wide range of applications. The use of more exotic material such as polyimides, PTFE & Ceramics have been increasing steadily over the last 5 years and are now a large part of PW Circuits manufacturing output.