Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Manufacturing & Fabrication
Affordable Quality. Advanced Capabilities
Are you looking for a PCB manufacturer that you can count on for quality, fabrication capabilities, and on-time delivery?
Do you want to work with a North American PCB fabricator who offers competitive pricing, is easy to communicate with, and where you’ll receive exceptional pre and post-sale service?
For over 40 years, electronics manufacturers have trusted and relied on Camptech II Circuits’ expertise and production capabilities to manufacture their printed circuit boards.
Whether your PCB is a simple one layer design or you require a multilayer board with controlled impedance and stacked microvias built, you can depend on us to manufacture your circuit boards with affordable pricing.
You can count on Camptech to deliver to your expectations.
- When you need prototypes boards built quickly
- When you have low volume production
- When you need large production quantities
We’ll guarantee that you will be delighted with the PCBs that you’ll receive from us.
PCB Manufacturing Capabilities
Delivery
- 2 to 10 days for prototypes
- 5 days to 4 weeks for production
PCB Types
- Rigid
- Flex
- Rigid-Flex
- Metal Core
- Hybrid
Silkscreen
- White
- Black
- Yellow
- Custom Colors
Components locations and other markings on a PCB are identified using a silkscreen legend.
Soldermask
- Solder mask registration tolerance – up to +/-0.002”
- Minimum width of solder mask bridge: 4mil (Green), 5mil (other color); 8 mil on copper area
Soldermask colors
- Green
- Red
- Blue
- Black
- White
- Yellow
- Custom colors
- Peelable Mask
Soldermask types
- Liquid Photo Imageable (LPI)
- Laser Direct Imaging (LDI)
Surface Finishes
Aspect Ratio
The Aspect Ratio is defined as the scale of board thickness compared to the diameter of the drilled via. If you have a board with a 0.24″ thickness and a via with a 0.02″ diameter, the aspect ratio is 12:1. The higher this ratio, the increased plating that will be around a via compared to inside the via.
Laminate Materials
- FR4
- High TG FR4
- Rogers
- Arlon
- Aluminum Base
- Polyimide
- Ceramic
- Taconic
- Megtron, etc.
Blind/Buried Vias
- Minimum epoxy filled via hole diameter – 4 mil
- Maximum aspect ratio for filled vias – 10:1
- Epoxy fill types – conductive & non-conductive
A blind via is a connection from an outer layer of a board to one or more inner layers without exiting out the opposite side of the board.
Plugged Vias
- Solder mask
- Non-Conductive Epoxy
- Finished hole size for via filled with resin: 4mil to 22.5 mil>
Routing Tolerance
- ± 5 mil
Inner Layer Copper
| Inner copper layer | Minimum trace/space |
| 0.5 oz. | 0.003” |
| 1 oz. | 0.00375” |
| 2 oz. | 0.005” |
| 3 oz. | 0.009” |
| 4 oz. | 0.012” |
Scoring Tolerance
- ± 10 mil
Outer Layer Copper
| Outer copper layer | Minimum trace/space |
| 0.5 oz. | 0.003” |
| 1 oz. | 0.0045” |
| 2 oz. | 0.007” |
| 3 oz. | 0.009” |
| 4 oz. | 0.014” |
| 5 oz to 20 oz. | Please contact us |
Stacked Microvias
- Yes
Number of Layers
- 1 to 30 Layers Rigid PCBs
- 1 to 10 Layer Flexible PCBs
A PCB is made up of layers of copper foil and insulating material, laminated to the substrate.
Pad (Ring)
- Min pad size for laser drilling – 10 mil (4 mil laser via)
- Min pad size for mechanical drilling – 16 mil (8 mil drilling)
- Min BGA pad size – 7 mil
Traces
- Minimum trace width – 3 mil
- Minimum trace spacing – 3 mil
Controlled Impedance & Simulations
- ± 10% tolerance
Hole Sizes
Minimum mechanical hole size
- 6 mil
Laser hole size
- Minimum 4 mil, maximum – 6 mil
Minimum SMT Pitch
- 5 mil
Layer to Layer Registration
- ± 3 mil
Via in Pad
- Yes
Electrical Test
Min. Dielectric Thickness
- 2 mil
Other Services
- Panelization
- Profiling
- Routing
- V-Scoring
- Edge-Plating
- Control Depth Holes
- Countersink Holes
- Castellation Holes
The information above is subject to change without notice.
Companies have trusted and depended on Camptech to manufactured their PCBs.
Here’s why:
We purchase PCB’s from Camptech Circuits for the last 5 years. Our boards are high complexity 6 to 20 layers with controlled impedance and Gigabit differential signals. Excellent quality, price, and customer service. Thank you Camptech! Highly recommended.
Camptech II circuits have been our reliable supplier for our pcb needs, from prototyping to production volumes for more than 15 years. Excellent quality pcbs and a customer service at a very competitive price. We do appreciate their valuable service and commitment to have the job done right, on time and on budget.
Top-notch quality for producing PCB boards of many different styles and requirements. Very nice customer service, and are extremely helpful.
Camptech has been a preferred vendor of mine for almost 30 years. From their quotes, to confirming purchase orders, to manufacturing our boards, Camptech has excelled in every area. I am happy to have been partnered with them for such a long period of time. I give them a 5 star recommendation!
Why Choose Camptech?
Choose Camptech because of our Trustworthiness, which is derived from our:
- Competence & Stability – with over 40 years of continued service based on delivering outstanding quality, a continual improvement mindset, and an understanding of what’s important to our customers. Building low-cost, quality PCBs requires up to date machinery, methods, and skilled personnel. Manufacturing today’s sophisticated designs demands advanced manufacturing capabilities.
- Reliability – you can count on Camptech to build your boards with consistently high quality and deliver them to you when you need them. Our approach to manufacturing is planned and has back-ups and redundancies built into it.
- Honesty – No unpleasant surprises. Sometimes things don’t go as planned. If there is an issue that our customer needs to be made aware of, we make sure that we communicate this as soon as possible and let you know what we are doing to make things right.
Camptech’s PCB Fabrication Process
1. CAM/Front End Engineering
The first step in the manufacturing process uses the CAD fabrication data and component information (contained in a Gerber file). This information is inputted into CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) software, which performs the following:
- Date verification
- Compensation for deviations in the manufacturing processes (e.g. scaling to compensate for distortions during lamination)
- Panelization
- Output of the digital tools (copper patterns, drill files, inspection, and others).
2. Cutting
The sheets of laminate and copper are cut into smaller pieces based on the size of the final PCB.
3. Inner Layer Exposure
The copper panels are first cleaned and then coated with a layer of photosensitive film called photoresist. In the printer, the panel is then sandwiched between 2 layers of film and exposed to the powerful UV light, which hardens the photoresist through the clear film to define the copper pattern. Under the black areas the photoresist remains unhardened.
4. Inner Etching
The copper is washed using an alkaline solution to etch away the exposed copper.
Next, the blue photoresist which protected the copper image is stripped off, resulting in the pattern required.
5. Inner Layer Inspection
The panel is inspected using an automated optical inspection system.
During this step, the image of the panel is compared to the digital image generated from the original design data and discrepancies are displayed. The panel can only proceed to the subsequent step after ensuring it is defect-free.
6. Oxide Treatment
The inner layers undergo this chemical treatment to increase the roughness of the panel surface, which increases the binding strength between the layers of laminate.
7. Lamination
The manufacture of a multi-layer PCB consists of layering an epoxy pre-impregnated fiberglass sheet between each copper layer and laminating together under high temperature and pressure using a hydraulic press.
8 & 9. Drilling & Laser Drilling
There are 3 types of holes that a circuit board could have:
- Vias
- Through-holes
- Mechanical holes
So, depending on the board design, any of these types of holes would need to be drilled into the board.
10. Plating
Drilling holes into the PCB causes the drill surfaces to become exposed. Basically, copper has to deposited on these surfaces, and this is done using Electroless Copper Deposition.
11. Outer Layer Exposure
The photoresist layer is removed from the panels, which exposes the underlying copper layer.
12. Outer Layer Etching
The panels are transferred to the etching area after plating and deposition of the protective layer of tin.
During the etching process, the unwanted copper foil is removed from the surface. The copper pattern of the printed circuit board and the plated holes remain protected by an electrically deposited layer of tin. During the etching process, the copper unprotected by the tin, is etched away thereby exposing the pattern of the PCB’s outer layer. During this carefully controlled process, it must be ensured the direction of etching is only down and not sideways. So that the finished conductor widths are precisely as designed.
(Designers should be aware that the thicker copper foils need wider space between the tracks.)
After the tin coating which protects the copper image is stripped off, the designed copper pattern remains.
13. AOI (Automatic Optical Inspection)
Using AOI (Automatic Optical Inspection) the quality of the etching is inspected.
14. Photo Imageable Solder Resist (PSR)
Also, know as Solder mask or solder stop mask.
To protect against oxidation and prohibit solder bridges from forming between closely spaced solder pads solder mask is applied to the copper traces of a PCB. For further information on Solder Mask Technology and liquid photo imageable solder masks, please click here.
15. Surface Finish (Treatment)
Since the solder mask is applied to the complete surface of the PCB, it needs to be removed from areas such as testing points, grounding pads, and assembly pads and pins. This means that these exposed areas are susceptible to oxidation.
So, to protect these areas and to ensure solderability, a PCB surface finish is applied to the board.
16. Routing
Each PCB is cut out of the panel according to the shape specified in the design file.
17. Electrical Test
To ensure the quality of the finished printed circuit boards, they undergo an electrical test. A flying probe tester is usually used for this purpose.
18. Final Inspection
The PCBs are washed to remove dust and dirt before entering the final inspection stage, where inspectors carefully examine every PCB to check for cosmetic and manufacturing defects. After passing inspection, the PCBs are prepared for shipment.