Why must PCB manufacturers conduct environmental tests on products?

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Why must PCB manufacturers conduct environmental tests on products?

Why must PCB manufacturers conduct environmental tests on products?

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Oct 19,22

Quality control is a significant part of staying successful as a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer. Conducting environmental tests is important for maintaining high quality standards, says Emily Newton.

Why must PCB manufacturers conduct environmental tests on products?

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) appear in everything from cars to computers to washing machines. Any reputable PCB manufacturer knows the importance of ensuring their products meet or exceed minimum standards. Conducting environmental tests is important for verifying that they do. Here’s a closer look at the essential nature of those examinations.

Environmental tests support product reliability

The people who buy PCBs or the products containing them want assurance that they’ll last at least as long as their expected life spans and won’t have product faults before or soon after leaving the factory. Specific kinds of tests allow manufacturers to verify that their PCBs are as expected. Two of the most common are the Highly Accelerated Life Cycle Test (HALT) and Highly Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS).

HALT testing subjects a product to incremental temperature, vibration and combined temperature-vibration stresses until it fails. It’s commonly deployed during the prototype phase because this examination can show product weaknesses and margins for operational design. Additionally, it can highlight component-level failures, showing design team members where room for improvement exists.

Conversely, HASS testing is more commonly used during mass production to screen for weak printed circuit board assemblies. It does not tell a PCB manufacturer whether the product will last for at least as long as its expected life span.

Together, HALT and HASS tests give PCB manufacturers warnings of product problems before those items reach the public. They can also significantly reduce development time and costs because people become aware of issues sooner and can fix them faster. When the only option is to fix problems during a later stage of production, people may notice knock-on effects that complicate the situation and mean products fail to get done by deadlines.

Testing allows for examination in a controlled environment

Once a PCB gets used in the real world, PCB manufacturers can’t be certain of the specific environments they’ll encounter. However, they can make some educated guesses based on a product’s intended use, specifications in the product documentation and more. For example, a PCB in a car will have much different environmental exposures than one placed in a smart speaker.

The operating instructions for many products containing PCBs typically include temperature ranges, details about water exposure and other specifics that people should be aware of so that their items will work as expected.

Environmental tests give people access to controlled settings. Some facilities have shakers and slip tables attached to custom-machined bases. Slip tables test specimens along the horizontal axis. Then, shaker tables assess how a PCB withstands vibrations of certain frequencies.

Then, the HALT and HASS tests mentioned above happen in chambers that have high-capacity thermal air stream systems. Because these examinations occur in carefully controlled and monitored environments, people can get useful data about how to help their PCBs perform as well as possible. It’s then easier to assess them in a wide variety of scenarios and learn about unexpected weak points.

Environmental testing accelerates PCB innovation

PCBs fall into numerous well-defined categories. People must know the pros and cons of each type before choosing one. For example, high-frequency PCBs tolerate frequencies of more than 1 gigahertz without getting too hot. However, it’s the environmental tests that tell a PCB manufacturer whether a specific design or material is likely to work as intended in the real world.

People are working hard to find PCB options that are more sustainable and don’t rely so heavily on materials that are in short supply. Society’s need for PCBs isn’t going away. However, numerous manufacturers have increasingly dealt with supply chain issues that made it hard or impossible to fulfill orders of products requiring PCBs.

One recently developed option is a prototype circuit board made with a sheet of paper. Tests showed the innovation was functional. It also burned to ash after researchers lit it on fire. They believe that’s vital in a world where so many discarded electronics end up in landfills and create PCB waste. Making PCBs from paper would also address many supply chain constraints.

Inventions like these are fascinating, but environmental tests will be necessary to see if they’re viable for the real world. A pioneering PCB must work safely and reliably for it to gain widespread appeal and acceptance. Many people understandably want to see hard data from lab tests before they’ll believe something new is trustworthy. They can help confirm a new PCB works as expected in certain environments rather than showing a flaw.

Many new PCBs seem amazing on paper and even in the lab. However, they’re not always feasible in the real world. That doesn’t take away from the overall achievement of creating it. However, it highlights the necessity of subjecting inventions to authentic conditions and seeing what happens afterward.

Environmental testing: Essential for a PCB manufacturer

Quality control is a significant part of staying successful as a PCB manufacturer. Indeed, it takes more than environmental tests to ensure a company keeps making high-quality products. However, seeing how the PCBs perform in specific environments is vital for helping producers identify problems early, then make the design or manufacturing adjustments necessary to address those issues and prevent future ones.

About the author:

Emily Newton is a tech and industrial journalist and the Editor-in-Chief of Revolutionized Magazine. Subscribe to the Revolutionized newsletter for more content from Emily.