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Printed Circuit Board

This starts life as a sheet of copper, stuck to an insulating board.

Areas of the copper are removed, usually by chemical etching, to leave a pattern of copper strips and pads which form the connecting paths (wires) for the circuit.

The board is then drilled, so that components can be mounted on the insulating board, with their legs pushed through the holes. These can then be soldered to the copper tracks on the other side.

Advantages

• mechanically robust - a permanent circuit;
• allows 'mass production', when photographic techniques are used to mark out the areas of copper to remove
• software packages are available to convert the circuit diagram into a PCB layout
• usually produces the most compact arrangement for a given circuit

Disadvantages

• considerable processing needed to convert the initial blank baseboard into the final design
• health and safety precautions needed when soldering, and when using chemicals to etch the copper
• most components cannot be re-used
• overall, the most expensive way to produce a 'one-off' circuit