Printed circuit board(PCB) - the base of each Electronic Product

Book excerpt: Though, the base of each Electronic products is a printed circuit board (PCB),little stress is given to understand their composition and properties. Printed Circuit board acts as base for physically supporting and wiring the Electronic components in most electronics. PCB or Printed Circuit Board is the traditional name for the bare board with the layout data and which you use to mount your components on once we have delivered it to you. A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, PCBs can be single-layer for simple electronic devices. Printed circuit boards for complex hardware, such as computer graphics cards and motherboards, may have up to twelve layers. A PC board can have conductors on one side or two sides and can be multi-layer — a sandwich with many layers of conductors, each separated by insulating layers. The most common circuit boards are made of plastic or glass-fiber and resin composites and use copper traces, but a wide variety of other materials may be used. Most PCBs are flat and rigid but flexible substrates can allow boards to fit in convoluted spaces. Components are mounted via SMD (surface-mount) or through-hole methods.