In the last 100 years, Printed
circuit boards have by far proven to be one of the most significant inventions.
And nowadays there hardly does is an electronic device that does not hold a
printed circuit board manufacturing in China, all do.
There may be a basic comprehension of a PCB
among all about why is it installed and what does it do, but there are a few
things about the same that not everyone talks or knows about as follow;
1) The very first printed
circuit board was manufactured from brass and not copper. It was Charles Ducas
in the early 1920’s who applied for a printed wire to the US patent office for
it to travel from an electronic path directly to the insulated surface. This
process was one of the earliest forms of electroplating, in which the ink
passed electricity that was printed on the board. And since there was no option
of installing copper wires because of lack of availability, the job was done by
brass wires.
2) There were a few
gramophones and tube radios that also had printed circuit boards installed in
them. The PCB’s that we see today, the modern and high tech versions of them
are not even close to the early 20’s circuit boards. But no matter how they
look now or then, the fact remains that the existence has been since the time
of gramophones and tube radios.
3) The original root of
PCB’s come from the music printing industry. Paul Eisler, an engineer from the
Vienna University of Technology, was considered to be the father of these all
new modern looking printed circuit board. He had escaped the Nazis in 1936 and
further gone over to join the music industry. And after he got a job he
enlightened his co-workers with his idea of a printed circuit board, on which
he had been working on for years. The company gave into his idea of invention
and rest is the commendable history.
4) The auto assembly
process of the PCB was invented by the US army. It is the army signal corps who
steals away the credits of manufacturing the process of auto assembly that
further allowed them to make PCB’s at a much higher pace. It is the
streamlining of the production of the printed circuit boards that have
escalated the explosion of the products used by customers today.
5) If there were no
printed circuit boards, there would have been no space travel possible yet.
These PCB’s were a very important part of the space program held by NASA. It
was the PCB that helped majorly in sending the Apollo 11 astronauts safely to
the moon and brings them back sound as well. The area in the spacecraft is extremely
confined and a PCB is of the lightest of weight and requires the least amount
of electricity to work giving more space to all the other installations as
well.
6) The spectrum is
completely covered by the PCB makers. No matter what you need, flexible, rigid,
aluminum printed circuit boards, everything is available today, from the
simplest of boards to the most complex multi-layer one, everything.
So, whatever may the technology
be mobiles, cameras, computers, players etc. printed circuit boards are everywhere
and in every possible variety to meet individual needs.
