In the increasingly fierce market competition, major circuit board manufacturers are trying their best to reduce costs in order to achieve a larger market share. While pursuing cost reduction, they often overlook the issue of circuit board quality. In order to provide customers with a deeper understanding of this issue, we have specially communicated with senior engineers from Guangzhou Circuit Board Factory to obtain some details and even secrets within the industry of various circuit board factories. We are here to share them with everyone, so that customers can choose circuit board suppliers more rationally.

The quality problems of circuit boards generally include short circuits, open circuits, green oil bubbles, green oil detachment, substrate delamination, board warping, solder pad detachment, poor soldering, and open circuits in aged circuit boards. The root cause of these common PCB circuit board quality problems lies in the inadequate production technology, outdated production equipment, poor raw material selection, and chaotic management of the circuit board factory.

Circuit board manufacturer

Reason 1: The production process is not up to standard. Circuit board production is a high-tech industry that involves a series of interdisciplinary fields such as electroplating, chemical engineering, and machinery. Each process of Guangzhou circuit board production must be carried out according to strict production technology, and each process must be equipped with corresponding testing and laboratory equipment. These process parameters and equipment can ensure the stability of circuit board quality. It cannot be denied that the circuit board industry is also a polluting industry, and many practitioners and even bosses who enter this industry are halfway through. Therefore, many small circuit board factories only care about prices and do not pay attention to production processes and circuit board quality as long as they can lower costs. The concentration of the plating solution in the electroplating process is a constantly changing parameter, and the current and time of the electroplating process vary for different types of circuit boards. These parameters, in turn, collectively affect the quality of the circuit board. Only strict production process guidance, production according to process parameters, and continuous laboratory inspections can ensure that the quality of the produced circuit boards is in a consistently stable state. If production is organized based on experience and quality problems arise, adding yao water based on intuition will directly lead to fluctuations in the quality of the circuit board. Customers using this type of circuit board will have a high repair rate and low yield rate. On the surface, the procurement cost of the circuit board appears to be reduced, but in reality, the maintenance cost of repair and rework is greatly increased. At the same time, the customer's brand is affected, and in the long run, it is not cost-effective.

Reason 2: Outdated production equipment. The fundamental way to improve the quality of circuit boards is to ensure hardware quality, increase investment in equipment, and achieve high efficiency and stability. With the advancement of technology, the replacement of circuit equipment is becoming faster and more advanced, and of course, the price is also becoming more and more expensive. This leads to some small circuit board factories not being able to install more expensive equipment, resulting in increased dependence on employees. The current labor cost is already high. Once a dependence on skilled and skilled employees is formed, the management difficulty of circuit board factories will greatly increase. Once personnel turnover occurs, the quality of circuit boards will fluctuate.

Reason three: Choosing cheap and inferior raw materials. The quality of raw materials is the cornerstone of the quality of circuit boards. If the material of the board itself is not up to standard, the resulting circuit will have bubbles, delamination, cracking, board warping, and uneven thickness. What is currently more covert is that some circuit board factories use mixed materials, some of which are genuine boards and some are scraps, in order to dilute costs. The hidden danger of doing so is not knowing which batch will have problems. Due to the different characteristics of circuit board usage, some circuit boards do not have high requirements, so some scraps used in such situations do not show obvious problems. This has allowed many circuit board manufacturers to get by with such practices, and at the same time, the low price has also won the favor of customers. This further encourages circuit board manufacturers to continue taking such risks. In the long run, if there are issues with the substrate that lead to quality problems in the finished product, it often results in significant losses and sometimes irreversible damage to the company's reputation and brand. This is also why more formal circuit board manufacturers would not do this.

Reason four: Chaotic management. The production process of circuit board factories is complex and the cycle is long. How to achieve scientific and orderly management while reducing management costs is a difficult problem. It requires the long-term accumulation of circuit board manufacturers to manage well, effectively, and inexpensively. With the advancement of technology, especially the development of the internet, it has become possible to use network information technology to manage traditional circuit board factories. Only by making breakthroughs in this area can core competitiveness be formed. A poorly managed factory will naturally experience frequent fluctuations in the quality of its circuit boards, with various problems arising repeatedly.

The above quality issues with circuit boards are a very serious problem and require long-term efforts from circuit board manufacturers in management, integrity, investment, and absorption of new technological means.