Economics of Bare Printed Circuit Board Testing

Abstract

The increasing complexity of today's Printed Circuit Boards inevitably leads to higher failure rates at the assembled board and product levels. Electrical testing of PCBs at the bare board level always results in early identification of failures, and thus in increased production economies. The escalating costs to identify faults at various levels of the PCB manufacturing and assembly process are discussed and illustrated. The typical PCB spectrum of faults, including contamination, shorts, opens, and holes is discussed, along with reliable methods of fault removal. In addition to the economic factors such as capital equipment cost, programming, fixturing, and operating costs, several technical factors are discussed and illustrated. These include test comprehensiveness and test speed. Since fault coverage is directly proportional to the measurement capability of the test equipment, the effects of measurement threshold on fault coverage and the resultant failure rates at the assembled board and product levels are discussed and illustrated. The importance of using the standard 100 megohm threshold is also discussed and illustrated.

Citation

Hroundas, G. (1986), "Economics of Bare Printed Circuit Board Testing", Circuit World, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 31-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb043796