We can see many technical terms in the PCBA industry. Because these words are not relatively long or exist in the form of phrases, it is not convenient to read, so we usually present them in abbreviated form, which is often not good for electronic enthusiasts or non-professionals. Next we will explore terms that frequently appear in the PCBA industry.

Commonly used professional terms in the PCBA industry

AOI: This is a detection method used in PCB assembly and PCB manufacturing, which is called automatic optical inspection. In the PCBA project, manufacturers ensure the quality of PCBA boards through various testing methods, and AOI inspection is one of them. In general, we can divide PCB testing methods into two types: equipment testing and manual testing. Just like its full name, AOI inspection is a means to rely on equipment to find component welding problems. Professional testers rely on AOI equipment to capture issues such as offset and polarity of soldered components. https://www.fs-pcba.com/assembly-pcb/

AQL: This term refers to the defect rate in the PCB production process acceptable to electronics manufacturers. The full name is Acceptance quality limit. As the number of PCB layers or component soldering increases, the probability of PCB assembly or manufacturing failure increases exponentially, which is detrimental to the manufacturing cost of PCBA boards. In order to control costs and delivery time, electronics manufacturers will specify their acceptable defect rate when communicating with PCBA processing plants.

BGA: It is the term of PCB and PCBA production technology, and its full name is ball grid array. For most electronic devices, we recommend the use of integrated circuits, but traditional DIP is difficult to install components, so BGA was born. First of all, when manufacturing PCBs, manufacturers will leave rows of square dense holes on the board surface, which are used for BGA assembly. Most of the time electronics manufacturers require this technique because it increases the efficiency of the board since they use ball posts instead of pins.

CAD: It means that designers use computers and other equipment to carry out PCB layout design. The full name is computer-aided design. We can find many PCB design tools on the Internet, they may be free or paid, but most of them do not provide three-dimensional space layout, which means that you need to observe the circuit on a plane. The CAD layout tool is different, it can provide the design of three-dimensional graphics, that is to say, you can observe the layout of the PCB 360° without dead angle through this software.

CAE: An acronym for Computer Aided Engineering, referring to schematic software packages used to develop and visualize PCB designs.

Introduction to the PCBA industry

In most cases, users who search for explanations of PCB terms are mostly novices or enthusiasts. Maybe they understand the basic circuit structure design, but they can't go deep.

PCBA is the abbreviation of PCB Assembly and it is still the process from bare board to finished circuit board. As far as I know, PCBA is currently more applicable in China, but it is not respected abroad, so its meaning is emphasized here. https://www.fs-pcba.com/

The process of PCBA is a simple process. For manufacturers, they need to use various automated equipment to complete the assembly. In most cases, when electronic manufacturing will provide design files to PCB assembly companies, if the files are feasible, the manufacturer will input instructions into the automation equipment for automatic completion. Although the assembly process is relatively simple, we still have to pay attention to the process, any small mistakes may lead to assembly failure.