Automotive PCBs

Printed circuit boards are used in the automotive industry in too many ways and applications

Examples of Automotive Printed Circuit Board Applications.

  • Airbag Deployment
    • Antilock Brake Systems
    • Audio & Video Equipment
    • Communication Equipment
    • DC/AC Power Converters
    • Digital Displays
    • Electronic Computer Unit (ECU) / Car Computers
    • Electronic Mirror Controls / Automatic Dimming
    • Emergency Assist
    • Engine Coolant Level (ECL) Monitors
    • Engine Timing Systems
    • Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
    • Interior LED lighting systems
    • LED Brake Lights
    • Navigation Equipment
    • Power Distribution Junction Box
    • Power relays
    • Radar & Radio Systems
    • Remote Diagnostic Systems
    • Security Systems
    • Transmission Sensors

 

Quality insurance requirement

Automotive PCB manufacturers should conform to regulations of ISO9001. HTGlobalCircuits is fully compliant with the ISO9001:2008 quality management system and is committed to adhering to the strictest standards in manufacture and assembly.
ISO/TS16949 is a set of technological regulations in global automotive industry. Based on ISO9001, with special demands in automotive industry added, it focuses more on defect prevention, decreasing quality fluctuation and waste that tend to be generated in automotive component supply chain. When implementing ISO/TS16949, special attention has to be paid to primary 5 key tools: PPAP (Production Part Approval Process) regulating that products should receive customers’ approval prior to volume production or after modification, APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) regulating that quality plan and previous quality analysis should exist before production, FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) analyzing and coming up with measures to prevent products’ potential failure, MSA (Measurement System Analysis) necessarily analyzing variation of measurement result to confirm measurement reliability, SPC (Statistical Process Control) mastering production procedure and product quality change with the application of statistical techniques. Therefore, the first step for PCB manufacturers to enter automotive electronic market lies in getting TS16949 certificate.

 

General Characteristics of Automotive PCBs

  • High-frequency substrate board
    Automotive collision-resistance/predictive braking safety system plays a role as a military radar device. Since automotive PCBs are responsible for transmitting microwave high-frequency signals, substrate with low dielectric loss needs to be applied with the ordinary substrate material to be PTFE. Different from FR4 material, PTFE or similar high-frequency substrate materials require special drilling speed and feeding speed during drilling.

 

  • Thick copper PCB
    Automotive electronics brings more heat energy owing to high density and power and hybrid power and electromotive tend to require more advancing electric power transmission system and more electronic functions, which leads to more requirements on heat dissipation and large current.
    It’s relatively easy to fabricate thick copper double-layer PCBs while it’s much more difficult to fabricate thick copper multi-layer PCBs. The key point lies in thick copper image etching and thickness vacant filling.

Inner routes of thick copper multi-layer PCB are all thick copper and therefore and graphic transfer photo-induced dry film is also relatively thick, requiring extremely tremendous etch resistance. Thick copper graphic etching time will be long and etching equipment and technical condition in the best state so as to ensure complete routings of thick copper. When it comes to external thick copper routing manufacturing, combination can be first applied between copper foil with relatively thick lamination and graphic plating thick copper layer and then comes film avoidance etching. Anti-plating dry film of graphic plating is relatively thick as well.

 

Surface difference is relatively large between inner conductor of thick copper multi-layer PCB and insulating substrate material and ordinary multi-layer board lamination fails to totally fill resin with cavity generated. In order to solve this problem, thin prepreg with a high content of resin should be applied as much as possible. Copper thickness of inner routings on some multi-layer PCBs is ununiform and different prepregs can be applied in areas with a large thick copper difference or a small difference.

 
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