The use of fast PCB prototypes allows many engineers and manufacturing plants across the world to test their theories and achieve their goals. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are, in fact, the basis behind many current technologies and new ideas. From the laptops and cell phones that we all use on a daily basis to the remotes that lock and unlock our cars, fast PCB prototypes help engineers and scientists find a way to test their products several times during the research and development stage. And while circuit board assembly has always been an essential part of the research and development stage of many products, the continued advancement in the PCB prototype assembly process facilitates a faster process.
Printed circuit board assembly is a technology that has been used for decades and continues to drive the future technologies that will simplify and improve our lives. Consider some of these facts and figures about a basic component of all of the technologies that we use on a daily basis:
- The circuit board and electronic component manufacturing industry in the U.S. generated $44 billion in the year 2014.
- Printed circuit boards were designed using clear Mylar sheets before PCB design software was introduced. These Mylar sheets were as much as four times bigger than the circuit board itself, but served as a surface on which designers would create a transparent photomask of the proposed design.
- The advent of machine PCB assembly processes, for any size orders, means that shops can assembly PCBs in a fraction of the time it would normally take for the previous process of hand placement. Some PCB assemblers, in fact, have a standard turn-time as fast as five days or less. This turn-time represents a process that is 75% faster than the industry average.
- Understanding the significance of PCB use, you simply have to look at the history and the increase of production. For instance, in 1995, just 50 years after the introduction of PCBs, these products became a $7.1 billion industry for the first time. Five years later, in the year 2000, these PCBs became an over $10 billion industry. By the year 2012 the revenue from this industry reached over $60 billion worldwide.
- Transistors could, theoretically, continue to get smaller until they reach the size of a single nanometer, equivalent to a thickness of 10 back-to-back atoms.
